by Ioana Visan
“There was a Mermaid,” Rafe murmured to himself.
“There was,” the Mermaid spoke, flashing sharp teeth, “until someone traveled back in time and drained my lake.”
“That’s what happens when you deal with Gorem.” If he felt any hint of compassion for her, Rafe’s voice didn’t show it. “Though I’ve heard it can be much worse.”
“Gorem? No, his Wizard did it. But yes, it is much worse.” She advanced a little more. Inside their orbits, her eyes were deep pools of darkness.
“Well, as sorry as we might feel for you, those poisonous mushrooms… Cheap trick!”
She smirked. “I had to catch your attention somehow, didn’t I?”
“You could have talked to us. That’s what we came here for. To warn you. But you had to make it personal.”
“When isn’t it personal?” It was a rhetorical question. “Besides, it was already too late. My lake is gone.”
“So find another one.”
“Too late. It’s been gone for two hundred years. I’m just waiting for the time ripple effect to catch up with me here. Ask your questions fast. It can happen at any time.”
That last statement hit a nerve. Even in the purple lighting, Rafe’s face lost some of its color. “Fine. What did Gorem want? Why? Did he get it?”
“Good questions.” The Mermaid nodded pensively. “One answer I do not know, one is irrelevant, and you’ll find out the other soon…”
“Not good enough.” Rafe shook his head and signaled for Vale to make his move.
Vale lunged from behind. Without actually seeing him, the Mermaid dodged his assault, swaying graciously to the left as if moving through water. She breathed out, and the air crystallized around her, forming hazy clouds that spread out. In a matter of seconds, they enveloped the entire clearing.
Alise could barely see two steps ahead of her. And she was alone. Lights and shadows flickered through the mist, but it was impossible to tell who or where they were exactly. “Rafe?” she called out quietly, not sure it was a good idea to disclose her location.
“Alise?”
“Rafe?”
“Vale?”
“Alise?”
The muffled voices echoed in the distance. Alise wished she had the power to dissipate the fog that clouded her sight. Once upon a time, she might have been able to do something about it. The Guardians couldn’t. They were all for fair fights and such, but the Mermaids often used the fog to hide. It wasn’t just hard to see in. It was hard to breathe in, too.
Panic crept in when she caught a glimpse of a silhouette that matched Rafe’s size heading her way. She had completely missed the attack coming from the ground. Long arms reached out through the mist and grasped at Alise’s arms, incapacitating her movement. The Mermaid’s face, stripped of all beauty and looking like a grotesque mask, came closer, swaying like the head of a snake.
“This isn’t my will,” she hissed, her voice raspy and hoarse. “I’m sorry. He makes me do this. He already took everything from me.”
The last words resonated somewhere deep inside her. It was a feeling she knew all too well. The loss of identity and purpose, the bleak future that lay ahead. Alise tried not to let it get to her. Gorem could make people do awful things. She was the living proof of that. The Mermaid was the lucky one here. Her troubles would all end soon. What did she want from her? She didn’t want to know.
Alise looked over the Mermaid’s head, wishing for Rafe to get there more quickly. His blades glowed faintly through the haze. “Rafe!” she yelled for help.
The Mermaid glanced back. He was there, his blade raised, prepared to strike. Then he hesitated for a split second, and that was long enough for the Mermaid to sink her teeth in Alise’s side. The blades came down too late. Hot, maddening pain ran through Alise’s body from her waist all the way to her toes, to the tips of her wings that she didn’t have anymore.
The Mermaid wailed and let go of her stunned victim. The blades had slashed her body open. She turned to Rafe. “Your third question?” she whispered through bloody lips.
“Did he get what he wanted?”
“He got it now…”
As her voice faded away, her eyes lost their focus, and her body went limp, falling to the ground. Rafe made no attempt to catch her. He was staring at Alise, who stood unusually still in the retreating fog, pressing her hands to her side. Blood dripped through her fingers.
Vale caught her before she collapsed.
Chapter Thirty-One
The cottage’s front door burst open, and Cassie ran down the front steps. “What happened?”
Leaving the engine running, Rafe jumped out of the car and hurried to the backseat to pull out an unconscious Alise.
“Oh, my God. Is she hurt?” Cassie fretted around them, trying to get a closer look.
Vale grabbed her by the arm to keep her out of the way. “Stay back,” he ordered in a low voice, with an intensity she didn’t dare cross.
Next to him, Rafe looked scary, like someone who had been to hell and back and had found nothing to return to. He looked right through Cassie as he passed by her. She paled at the sight of all the blood that covered her friend. Rafe didn’t seem to care that he was getting it all over his clothes as he carried her into the house, leaving a red trail behind. Alise lay limp in his arms, head and arms hanging without support. All that blood…
“What happened?” Cassie gasped and struggled to keep up with him.
“The Mermaid bit her,” Vale said as he went ahead to clear the way.
“I thought she was supposed to be on our side?”
“We were past that point.”
“You should have protected her! You said you would!”
“We tried, but…”
* * *
Rafe wasn’t aware of anything happening around him. He just knew he had to get Alise inside. He crossed the spacious living room with his precious cargo, heading for the closest door—the storage room underneath the staircase. Vale opened it for him, pressing his palm against it and drawing a quick symbol. The walls of the blue room appeared on the other side of the threshold.
“Do you need me in there?” Vale asked.
“No. Stay on guard out here,” Rafe said and stepped into the room. The door closed behind him and as it did, the walls vibrated. The room shortened and brought him closer to another threshold. The blue room wasn’t the one he wanted. He needed his own room.
Without much ceremony, he dumped the body on the bed and used his blade to slice open her clothes. Alise whimpered and stirred under his touch. Rafe’s lips formed a straight line. Her entire right side was a bloody mess. The poison had contaminated her system, spreading through her veins and corrupting the magic paths on the way. The once golden vines looked like dark smudges on her ashen skin.
Healing stone in one hand and blade in the other, Rafe prepared himself for the tedious task of fixing her. He started to carve away.
* * *
“Well?” Cassie stared at Vale in front of the closed door. “What happened out there? Why couldn’t you protect her? You look unharmed.”
Giving her a long look, Vale passed by her and went to fetch the scotch and a glass from a shelf. With slow moves, he poured himself a drink before answering. “We got separated by the fog. Then I was too far, and Rafe…” He shook his head and drank from the glass. “He hesitated.”
“What do you mean he hesitated? Your job is to protect. And I’ve seen him fight. Nothing can stand in his way!” Cassie vociferated.
“True … but it’s not that simple.”
“Explain.”
He toyed with the glass, fighting the impulse to speak, but he couldn’t resist for long. “This is not all we are. It’s only a layer of our … human selves.” He thought about the description, but he couldn’t come up with a better one. “The thing is… With us being made to be so faithful, Guardians mate for life … or until one of the partners’ life ends. It’s quite an inconvenience because there�
�s few of us left, even fewer women Guardians, and we’re all work driven…”
“You mean all Guardians are gay?” Cassie asked seriously.
“No.” He chuckled. “It means we have a tendency to fall in love outside of our ranks. When it happens,” his voice turned bitter, “it’s both a bliss and a curse.”
“What does this have to do with Rafe?”
“His last partner was a Mermaid.”
“Oh…”
“Her lake drained in a natural catastrophe, and she died in his arms. It wasn’t easy for him.” Which meant it hadn’t been easy for Vale, who had to witness Rafe’s grief while being unable to help. It wasn’t easy to be a Guardian.
“That’s why he couldn’t kill this one…,” Cassie muttered.
“He did kill her. He sliced her in half. But he hesitated, and it was too late. She had bitten Alise by then.”
“Then why did he still kill her?’
Vale took a sip from the glass and avoided her questioning stare. “Like I said, we mate for life…”
* * *
Rafe was covered in blood. Everything around him was red. The bed had turned into a sticky, strong iron-scented pool. His fingers danced between organs, while his blade carved into Alise’s waist. The blood looked normal at first, but if he waited long enough, it darkened again, signaling the presence of the poison.
So he cut her and healed her again and again, hoping to get as much of the poison out, although it soon became clear the healing stone was no good with that. He still tried until there appeared to be no more blood left to bleed.
He took one long look at Alise, murmuring, “I’m sorry.” He pressed the healing stone against the wound one last time.
* * *
Cassie jumped to her feet when Rafe emerged from the blue room and closed the door behind him with great care. “Is she all right?”
Rafe slowly walked to the table next to where Vale was standing. He hadn’t bothered to change, and the sleeves of his shirt were drenched in blood. He picked up the bottle and drank straight from it. “No.”
Vale looked up. “Is she dead?”
“No.”
It should have been good news, but instead of making Vale happy, his face darkened. “Do you want me to put her down?” he offered after a moment of thought.
“No.”
There was a long pause.
“You’re not doing her any favors.” Vale couldn’t let it go. “The poison will kill her, and it will be a painful and miserable death.”
“I know.” Rafe sighed and let himself fall on the couch. He laid his head back and closed his eyes. “But we have a job to do…”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Her first sensation was that of cold. Alise curled up under the covers and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to wake. For once, she didn’t want to face a new day. Regardless of her struggle to push the memories away, they tickled the edge of her conscious mind. She remembered the fog, the Mermaid, and the burning pain of the bite.
With a gasp, she kicked the covers off and pulled up the shirt to reveal her waist. The wound was closed, a dark patch festering inside. Gray vines looking like messy stained glass artwork grew from it, heading for her chest, back, and hip, pinned in place by the poison and unable to move or fade away.
“In this rate, I’ll soon be running out of shirts,” Rafe said from the chair at the foot of the bed where he played with his blade. The metal glinted in the sunlight coming from the window. “You might want to chip in.”
Alise stared at him with horrified eyes. “What did you do?”
“I kept you alive.” The answer came in a clipped voice.
“You closed it!”
He shrugged. “It was either that or let you bleed to death.”
“The poison got trapped inside! Do you know what it does to a person?”
“Of course I know what it does,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes.
“It brings hallucinations … madness … and death.” Alise listed them all, pausing after each symptom. “I’ve survived losing my wings, I escaped Gorem, but now I’m going to die because of a Mermaid bite? Just great!” She tossed her hands up in the air and let her head fall back onto the pillow.
Rafe didn’t speak right away, but when he did, his voice was low and determined. “We can find a cure.”
“Not here.”
“We’ll look for one on the other side. There’s always a cure.”
Alise shook her head, her eyes boring into him.
“Hey, if you want to die, be my guest.” Rafe tossed the blade on the bed next to her leg.
Alise pulled her knee away as if the shiny blade could burn her through the sheets.
“Or I could call Vale. He’s already offered to do it.”
“Why didn’t you let him?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Because—” Rafe propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, looking pointedly at her, “—in spite of everything that has happened, it seems you’re still pretty keen on living. And wouldn’t you like to see Gorem pay for his crimes?”
Alise didn’t answer.
“Okay then.” Rafe got up and retrieved his blade. “Since we’re here, get out of bed and try to come up with an explanation for why we’ve been gone all day.”
* * *
It was past noon when they walked out of the storage room. Vale waited by the door while Cassie stood on the porch to make sure the others didn’t walk in. Given the smell of burned fat that had invaded the cabin, Mark had to be working on the grill again. They heard faint voices, so Sarah was with him.
“Hey. How are you feeling?” Cassie rushed into the cabin.
“I feel fine, considering…,” Alise said. Except for the dull ache in her side—and even that was receding as the poison spread evenly thorough her body—she felt fine. If it kept her functional, she couldn’t ask for more.
“She owes me another shirt,” Rafe said. “And sheets. And possibly a mattress, too. Bloodstains are hard to remove. Oh, and my healing stone got a bit of indigestion from that poison, so it demands compensation.”
“Fine,” Alise said, just to make him be quiet. “I’ll pay you back on the other side.”
“In nature?” A leer passed over Rafe’s face, but it was only on the surface. Concern filled his eyes.
Alise mocked a grin that she let vanish as soon as it appeared. She had more important things on her mind. “Listen up, boys.” Vale rolled his eyes at being called “boy”. Rafe frowned, put on guard by her tone. “Since it’s obvious your plans don’t work,” Alise said, “I’m going to tell you about my plan.”
Cassie’s eyes flickered nervously between the two of them as if fearing an outburst.
“I’m all ears.” Rafe lowered his head and raised his eyes to stare at Alise.
“Cassie and I are going home,” Alise said with a determination that had been absent for a long time. “We’ll leave right after lunch, so we have time to clean up the apartment. We’ll take the car. We can give you a ride back into town, you can stay here and fraternize with Mark over more beer … or you can walk.” She shrugged her shoulders letting them know she didn’t care either way.
Oddly enough, Cassie stepped forward first. Her hands were held tight at her side. “Will you be safe?”
“Safer than in their company.” Alise nodded towards the Guardians. “At least there are no Mermaids in town.”
“I wouldn’t say the same thing about monsters,” Rafe said.
“Gorem can’t create monsters,” she replied. “He can’t do much by himself. That’s why he needs others to do his dirty work. He used Fabian to track me down here, and you to get me to the Mermaid. But now Fabian is gone, and it will take him at least a few more days to pull himself together if he survived. And without his protection, if you two hadn’t wasted your time chasing dead Mermaids, you would have found Gorem by now.”
“Is she telling us how to do our job?” Rafe turned to Vale.
Vale shook his head. “No, she’s got a point.”
“Thank you,” Alise said.
“Our chances to catch him have exponentially increased.” Vale tapped his foot on the floor. “If we don’t have to worry about keeping her safe—”
“Good. I’m glad we all agree.” Alise placed her hands on her hips. “I’ll be at the apartment if you need me.”
Rafe’s eyebrows rose. “If?”
“Well, I was thinking maybe he’d put up a good fight, and you’d be forced to kill him.” A cold smile twisted her lips. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Don’t you want to see him punished?”
Alise pondered over the question. “Let’s just say the thought of him dying doesn’t keep me awake at night. Him being alive, in any world, does. And now, if you excuse me, I’m starving.” She headed for the door.
“Is she always like this?” Vale asked Cassie. “Or is it the poison talking?”
“I have no idea.” After pursing her lips, Cassie chuckled. “But she’s so much fun!”
The quiet sound of Rafe’s footsteps stalked Alise into the yard. She hadn’t made it to the table before he grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. “You will stay at the apartment,” he told her in a low voice, not bothering to disguise the fact that it was an order.
“Yes.” Alise returned his gaze without flinching. “Unless Cassie kicks me out, that’s what I intend to do.”
He peered into her eyes as if searching for a lie. “You better. If you try to run again, I will find you no matter where you go. You know I will.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alise murmured. “If I’m going to die, I’ll do it on my terms. Until then, I plan to live.” She pulled away from him and went to the table to fetch herself a cold drink. The poison and the heat made her blood boil.
