Odd Stuff

by Nelson, Virginia

  He held me like that for a moment, and I relaxed before he turned me. Bracing his hands on either side of my head, he trapped us in a cocoon of his hair and the car, lit by the glow of his eyes. Our lips touched, the barest whispers of contact until I caught his face and kissed him fully. Almost impatiently, he tugged my legs around his waist.

  “Missed you.” He nuzzled my neck.

  “Yeah, right.” I tried to find the barriers that I was working so hard to construct. He pressed himself into me, leather making him more solid feeling even through denim. I bit back a moan.

  “Nothing is easy with you, is it? I am gone for the few short hours of an Ohio winter day, and already you doubt me?”

  I smirked and slid off him. “Did I ever say I stopped doubting you to start with?”

  He grinned. “Just wait. If I I’ve learned one thing over the span of my lifetime, it is patience.”

  “Virtuous.” I got into the car, he slid in after me and put it in gear.

  “Now that I have found you, I have no plans on letting you go.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nice sweet talk, Batman, but you can save it. You have me in your bed. I think you already got the grand prize.”

  “Nope. I plan to keep you. That’s the grand prize.”

  “I’ve been down that road, I’m not so great at it. Can’t we just enjoy it and quit all the lovey-dovey chatter?”

  “You haven’t been down that road with me and I plan on living a very long time. When I talk long term relationship, I intend longer than a mortal lifespan. You probably should be nervous.”

  I patted his leg. “Like I said, save the sweet talk. Enjoy what we have now because I really don’t have anything more to offer you.”

  “We will see, little screamer.”

  I sat back and turned up the radio as Ashtabula sped by like some Norman Rockwell winter-scape. Even knowing Vance was off the mark, I couldn’t keep a small smile from my face. It was stupid, but he made me happy.

  ~

  I woke blearily and wiped a bit of drool from the corner of my mouth as we approached the US customs on the border. I blinked at the lights. “How long have I been out?”

  “Less than four hours. All the way through Pennsylvania and New York.”

  “We barely cross Pennsylvania to get to Canada,” I grouched.

  “Yes, we’re about to cross the QEW and will be in Niagara-on-the-Lake in a few minutes. My brother is in charge around here, so if Mia is in Canada, I figure he is our best bet to find out where.”

  “You have a brother up here?”

  “Mmm-mm.” He didn’t take his eyes off the road to reply to me. “He gets up later than me, but it is nearly ten thirty, so he should be up. He lives in Saint Catherine’s, but spends most nights at the wax museum.”

  “Where are we now?”

  “Near the Falls.”

  “Oh, do we have time to stop and see them?”

  He looked at me, dubious. “You grew up in Ashtabula and never saw the Falls?”

  “Nope, my mom isn’t big on traveling.” He pulled into what looked like a state park and parked in front of a bronze bust. I got out, grabbing the backpack loaded with Mia’s supplies, and could hear a very loud roaring in the distance. Reading the plaque at the bottom of the bust, I saw it was a representation of the first man to go over the falls and live. Neat.

  When I looked past the rail, I gasped. Niagara Falls does that—millions of gallons of water rushed over the edge at awe inspiring speed. I stared, enchanted by the power and majesty of it.

  “You think that is good, you should see it when it is turned on.” I looked back at Vance and then back at the black water rushing off the edge of a cliff that seemed to drop into nothingness.

  “What do you mean?” I leaned over the rail.

  “They turn down the water at night to keep it from eroding too quickly. Actually, it is never allowed to run at full power anymore. Most of the water gets redirected to a power plant.”

  I stared at the water and felt a tug. How awful that something so powerful, so much a piece of nature, was controlled just to make it go the way people wanted.

  Then I drew a parallel between myself and the rushing water—I kept a part of me, most of me, dampened to keep what I thought was right in place. Like people controlled the falls to keep what they thought was right in place. I was just as much a part of nature, a powerful part, as this natural power. I was the only one of me in all of history, also like this falling water. And, as the witches had said in the store, there are no mistakes in Creation. Everything has its purpose, whether we see it or not. The falls crumbled because they were meant to, but humans controlled them, took away from their power to keep them alive. I controlled me to keep me from crumbling, to keep me alive. Whether I could see it or not, I must have a purpose under Creation. And suddenly my life was as much, if not more, of a travesty of nature as this natural wonder brought to its knees by technology.

  I closed my eyes, letting the mist wash over me. I was confused. What was right? I had asked Old Mother and she had asked me, what is right? Should I continue to deny myself the ability to be myself, and succumb to what others thought was right for me? Or should I succumb to what every cell in my body cried out for me to be, to hell with what is supposedly right?

  Vance stood silent by my side and I came up with no answers, so after another minute listening to the scream of rushing water, I took his hand. “Walk with me?”

  We strode up a hill toward the many buildings, mostly hotels and tourist traps scattered the busy street. Bar doors opened letting out laughing people and museums stood grand in the light snow. “Look, the Ripley’s Believe it, or Not Museum. I used to love that show!”

  “I wonder how much of the past week Ripley would believe?” Vance nudged me in the arm.

  “Let’s go in!” I tugged on his arm, and we walked through to look at things like the world’s tallest man. We came to a huge, round globe of marble, suspended by water. You could touch it and it would move, still suspended and almost weightless in the water. I left Vance looking at something else and checked it out.

  “That is so cool.” I gaped around in awe. I touched it and it rolled a little toward a man in red on the other side. He smiled at me and rolled it back toward me.

  Game, I made it change direction and roll counter-clock wise again.

  He smiled at me and lifted his hands out palms up. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” And then the marble rocked on its pedestal of water.

  I backed up and water sloshed out before the rock began to roll. Water shot up to the ceiling behind the rock, and yet the rock paid it no heed. Rocks aren’t too easily impressed.

  The murmur of rock on floor shifted. I cracked open an eye to see it had left its pedastal and fallen to the floor was in time to see it roll through the front windows of the museum.

  I blinked.

  It hadn’t crushed me.

  Oh, no. There was a hill out there, and we were a good halfway up. That rock would kill everyone it hit, if it wasn’t stopped. Not sure what I thought I was going to do about it, I chased after the rock. Vance ran next to me and we managed to get in front of the rock.

  “What now?” he panted, God only knows how many tons of marble coming at us, people screaming around us.

  I closed my eyes. I sifted through my brain and tried to remember anything that might be useful to stop rock.

  Why hadn’t it hit me?

  Oh, yeah, mom’s side of the family.

  I raised my hands again, as I had in the museum. Ice cold wind whipped my hair into a frenzy. I reached out with my mind and caught the wind.

  I wrestled with it, tamed it and threw it at the rock. The wind caught the rock and it seemed to slow. I forced more wind to bend to my will and pushed harder. Inch by painful inch, I pushed the rock with the force of the wind and it began to roll back toward the museum. I could sense Vance still standing in the street.

  I moved the rock back to the water and dropped it
with a splash onto the place it had come from. Water gurgled for a moment and then the marble began to roll in place as it had before it had been freed.

  Applause broke out. The humans apparently thought it was a magic trick—I could just be another street magician, for all they knew, with a flair for the dramatic. I took a bow and went looking for Vance.

  He sat on a bench under a street light. “Someone was trying to kill me. We must be close to Mia.”

  He shrugged toward the hill, and pointed at a wax museum at the top. “My brother should be up there. We can talk to him.”

  He didn’t look like he cared much about that, though. “Floating, I can chalk up to the siren thing. I mean, I never knew one personally, so why not be able to float during sex—?”

  “That was me?” I asked. I had been sure it was him.

  “Yeah. I did the dancing, but the bit after that was all you. You didn’t even realize you were doing it?”

  “Thought it was you.” I shrugged and sat beside him. There wasn’t going to be any turning back. He’d figured me out or would in a minute.

  “That rock bit, though, that wasn’t siren.”

  “Nope, my mother’s side.” Yeah, I was toast. There was no way to lie my way out of this one.

  “Who is your mom?”

  “Mab.” My voice was flat.

  “Mab?”

  I sighed. “Queen Mab.”

  “Goblin Queen Mab? Queen of all Faerie? Queen of Elves, fairies, that Queen Mab?”

  “Yup, but fairies, goblins, and elves are all really just the same thing in different forms. They are all one race.”

  “You are telling me that a siren—” He stopped and shook his head. “Who was your dad?”

  “Listen, I—”

  “He wasn’t—”

  I sighed, again, “Yes. Erin. Consort to the Queen of the Sirens.”

  “You are telling me that the king of the sirens—”

  “Consort. Sirens are matriarchal.”

  “And the Queen of Faerie had a kid?” he barreled on, as if I had not spoken.

  “Yup.” My voice was quiet. Flat. Dead.

  “And you are their kid?” His perfect face contorted with a deepening frown and wide eyes, which showed his mixture of horror and disbelief.

  “Lucky me, huh?” I whispered. I dropped my face in my hands. I had just signed my death warrant.

  “And you said I couldn’t be real?” He burst out laughing and kissed me.

  I pulled back and stared at him, amazed. This was supposed to be the part where he tried to kill me.

  “Have you gone mad?”

  “I’m sorry. Gotta have a guy moment here. My girlfriend is the most powerful creature in two species. Man, I must be good.”

  I glared at him. I shook my head. “Your ego is amazing.”

  “Yeah, it kind of is,” he agreed and tried to kiss me again.

  “I’m not your girlfriend.” Focus on what matters, Janie, I told myself and started again. “I am a monster, an aberration of nature.” I avoided him as he tried to kiss me.

  “Yeah, me, too. Don’t worry, it’s fun to be a monster. I’ll show you.”

  “I don’t want to be a monster!” I yelped and darted away.

  He pinned me to a wall and kissed me so thoroughly that I was clinging.

  “Yeah, and I wanna see the sun rise. Get over it.”

  CHAPTER Thirteen

  I tried to get my hands free. “You idiot. Did you catch any of what I just said?”

  “Yes. Kiss me.”

  “No, you are bent, do you know that? If anyone found out what I am, then all of your kind, all of my mother’s kind, all of Mia’s kind…they all would want me dead.”

  “Yeah. Good thing you could kick their butts. Hey, you could kick my butt.”

  “Yes!” I shrieked. Finally, he got it.

  “Good thing my ego has been honed for years and can take a little emasculation. That’s hot.”

  I sighed. “You aren’t getting this.”

  “You are an amazing one of a kind person who could take over the world, but chooses to hide in obscurity rather than trying to control others. Clearly, you aren’t power hungry.” He shifted his grip on me, allowing my arms to drop to his shoulders, but kept me pinned to the wall with his body. “You are loyal enough to break your own rules to help a friend, and you’re equally loyal to the new ones you make—”

  “Tell me where you came up with that one and—”

  “In the bar. You sang to save me. You and Mia could have given me up, or you could have sat in her circle and waited for the sun to rise. You never even gave those options consideration. You sang to save me and nearly lost all that you’ve worked to save. For me.” He ducked and kissed my neck when I turned my face away.

  “Yeah, well, looking back—”

  He snorted into my neck. “You are great. You are perfect. And if we didn’t have to go find your best friend, I would get us a room and show you how fond of you I am.”

  I shifted in his arms again. “That would just show me how horny vampires are.”

  He shrugged. “I won’t bother to deny it.” He kissed me, and I let a little hope in. Maybe I’m not all bad. Maybe what I am could be used for good.

  But I remembered the faces of the men in the bar years ago. I remembered Old Mother telling me I would betray my friends.

  I it shoved all down, deep down, and kissed him back. No use borrowing trouble.

  ~

  “So, did you tell me why your brother hangs out at a wax museum?”

  “No, you hadn’t asked.” I looked at a wax Angelina Jolie posed next to a wax Brad Pitt.

  “Okay, I am asking.”

  “The same reason that I hang out at a magic shop. Nothing better to do, I would guess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So, where is he?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “And we are hanging around up here because?”

  “Something is off. Someone should have come up already and escorted us down.”

  “Okay, and if they don’t?” I looked at him expectantly. Playing twenty questions was getting old, fast.

  “I guess we could barge in…”

  “Great, let’s.” I pulled on his arm, and he shrugged. We headed to the back of the building. Two goons stood there waiting.

  One goon shook his head at us. “The master don’t want company.” For the sake of simplicity, we’ll call him Lug.

  “Go out the way you-ez guys came in,” replied his compatriot, Weasel.

  “We are here to see Gregorian.” Vance did the bare-his-teeth thing, which must be some vampire code, I decided. I licked my teeth. Couldn’t fake that one.

  “Like we-ez said, he don’ wan’ no company.” Weazel crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I’m his brother,” explained Vance.

  “We know who you ezz.” Weasel scratched his head. “And we ezz tol’ to escort you-ez out if there ezz any trouble.”

  “Okay, escort me.” I stepped up.

  Weasel looked confused. So did Vance, but he kept quiet. I guess he thought I had a plan.

  I didn’t. I was just tired of talking to them. Weasel ended too many words with Z.

  “Listen, lady, this don’t concern you.” Lug stepped up as he spoke threateningly.

  “Actually,” I quickly inserted, thinking fast. “It is my concern. He brought me here as a gift to his brother. If he doesn’t want me, I want escorted out so he,” I pointed back at Vance with my thumb. “Doesn’t try to grab me again and make me a gift to someone else.”

  Okay, I had turned my amazing ability to bullshit back on and ran with it. I had no idea if vampires gave human women as gifts or not. I did remember some story, I think it was Arabian Nights, or maybe Cleopatra, where they wrapped somebody up in a rug and gave her as a gift.

  Why wouldn’t vampires do that? Apparently, I was not off base because Lug looked at Weasel. “He don’t like to miss out on girls.”

  Weasel
glanced at me. “Yeah, but he don’ wan’ no companeez.”

  “What harm can it do?” I smiled. “Escort me out.”

  “No, lady. You and the brother, come with me.” Apparently, what Lug said went because we were escorted behind a door marked Authorized Personnel Only. I think the most fascinating things must be behind those doors. I have yet to be let down.

  I followed Lug, Vance followed me, and Weasel followed him. We went down a hall, through a door, and then we were in a stone hall with burning sconces on the walls. I found this very atmospheric and decided to put them in on my next remodel.

  Actually, when I act goofy, it is a tell that I feel really scared. I had a very bad feeling.

  It got worse the further below ground we got.

  Finally, we came to a hallway done in medieval modern—rugs on the walls, rugs on the floor, burning sconces—the dungeon look. A set of big iron handcuffs even stuck out of the wall.

  I had a bad feeling they weren’t there for to create atmospheric accuracy.

  They led me to a small room. “You-ez stay here, while I take the girl in.”

  Lug blocked Vance, and Weasel led me in. The door shut behind me. Just me and the bad guys.

  I looked around. A man sat on what I can only call a throne, a woman on the floor in front of him in some Princess-Leia-meets-Jabba-the-Hut get-up, chained to his chair. It took me a minute to even recognize it as Mia.

  I gasped. “Mia—” I rushed to cross the room to her.

  “I wouldn’t come closer, human.” I knew that voice. I looked up. The man on the throne was the same man I met outside Red Roof. The mysterious messenger, as I had mentally dubbed him.

  “Yeah, well my mother is always saying I lack good decision making skills,” I began.

  “You would be wiser to listen, this once,” he put in smoothly. Tan and golden haired as before, his eyes still struck me as oddly familiar. Set far apart on his face and the wrong shape but…nope, still didn’t place him. I had a feeling he wasn’t altogether paying attention to what was going on in this room. Maybe he was doing something mystical, like looking through the eyes of his lackie in the hall…maybe he was mentally organizing his sock drawer. Either way, I had only a small portion of his attention.