“Yes. He is talented.” I say after a few moments pause. My father looks at me with an unusual expression creasing his face.
“Aren’t we all?” He comments again as we move through the water, leaving the city behind us as a glinting speck in the distance. He is not wrong, the Goddess did not bestow this life on those who had no useful skill.
“How are you?” He asks, placing a strong hand on my metal clad shoulder.
“I’m fine.” I reply shortly.
“Are you certain, Orion? Not only have I watched you for almost five hundred years but you also happen to be my son.” He cocks a silver eyebrow and I look into his scorching golden gaze. He is right, there is little I can feel without him knowing.
“It’s just harder than I expected … with Callie.” I admit, feeling guilt wash over me the second my concern is aired.
“That is to be expected son. She’s not just your other half. She is your responsibility.”
“I feel like I’m letting her down at every turn, father. I don’t know how to make the tough calls when it comes to her. I just want to keep her safe.”
“I know, but you don’t want to crush her spirit, Orion.” He looks at me with empathy.
“I just thought it would be easier. We share a soul.” I bite out.
“That doesn’t mean she will bend to your will, son. She is her own person. She may be your soul mate but she is none the less an individual.” He smiles, thinking of something I’m not privy to.
“But you and Shaniqua father, you have this rhythm, you’re so … together. I never know what Callie’s thinking.”
“Shaniqua and I have been together for centuries, Orion. You and Callie have spent merely days together. You must be patient. You must give her time.” What he says resonates within me, I’m taken back to Callie’s expression about letting the connection between us ‘develop naturally’.
“I just want to make her happy.” I sigh.
“I know son. But you have to ready yourself for change, both good and bad. You have been the master of your own desire for longer than anyone should be. You must learn to bend to her without breaking and to listen.” My father has his wise voice on. He loves giving advice. I feel grateful; after all, he’s had more life experience than anyone.
“I’m scared.” I admit thinking saying it aloud will take the power out of the emotion. It doesn’t.
“That’s good. Trust me.”
“How is that good? I can’t concentrate. I’ve lied to her about where I’m going. I’m a mess.”
“Its good son, because it means that after all this time, you finally have something to lose.” He imparts this sentiment and I feel something well inside me that I cannot describe. Be patient. The fear is good. I repeat this mantra several times in my head and my father smiles. Knowing he has done his job.
My sister moves in beside me after eavesdropping on my conversation, she has a scowl on her face. I cannot understand it, but she has not taken to Callie as I had hoped. I must ensure she knows she still matters to me, I muse, remembering the close relationship established between us over the last few centuries.
“You look very pretty today, Star.” I admire her long blonde hair and the delicate silver chainmail that coats her tailfin.
“You don’t have to suck up just because Callie isn’t here. You blew me off at the Lunar Celebration. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” She looks irritable, so I back off. Returning to business as we race, like shadows, through the water.
passes beneath the glacier surface of her eyes.
“It’s a snake-looking half dead thing. Or that’s what wormed its way into my skull. I won’t be sleeping right for weeks.” She looks so tortured. I wonder what it must be like, having demons running rampant through your mind.
“Big?” I push my luck and Atlas looks at me.
“Let Starlet focus. I don’t want any surprises.” He states and I seal my lips. My father is not the kind of man you argue with. Especially over Starlet. She is his pride and joy. The shooting star that fell from the heavens just for him. I shudder as the image of her shadow engulfed twin passes through my memory. I feel guilt hit me, filling my chest as I remember the blade hitting her square in the back. She is still my sister after all.
“Here.” Her eyes are cloudy, like milk was spilled over her field of vision.
“There’s nothing here, Starlet.” Father comments, but I feel something stir behind me. I pull my spear from its sheath and turn, the hairs on the back of my neck rising ceremoniously. I circle once but the only thing for miles, other than the great ruptures in the seabed beneath us, is some boulders scattered across the empty sand. My heart pounds, my nerves on edge in a way I had never known before the arrival of Callie. I’m paranoid more than I’ve ever been and I can’t quite seem to keep the cool resolve I’m used to. I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck again and my heart skips a beat. I can’t help but wonder if … I start to move over to a large boulder directly behind me by around a hundred yards, but before I can reach it, sound is reverberating inside my skull.
“Orion!” I hear my name, bouncing off the bones within my head, my father’s gift of telepathy with his warriors never fails to surprise me, just as it had when I was preparing to lay my past bare before Callie. I turn, spear drawn, ready to move. My father was not wrong to call my name, as from the depths of the fault lines rises the thing that we have been charged to destroy. A demon of the deep.
CALLIE
I want to scream but there is no sound capable of expressing the terror that washes over me as I watch the monster rise from the bowels of the ocean. It is like some mariners nightmare. A rumbling sound erupts from beneath me as the beast moves from within the fissures in the earth below and the smell of burning flesh moves through the water. My eyes water at the chemicals leaking from the unsightly cracks as I cover my ears, shut my eyes, and lean against the boulder, paralysed as everything I know implodes in a second. I want to collapse as the security I had been lulled into over the past 24 hours shatters like the fragile state it really was. I feel myself tremble as I peek above the round top of the boulder, which eclipses me from view. My fingers scrape against the rock, my knuckles turning white as I grip on like the boulder could save me from whatever is coming. A long, skeletal serpentine frame rises, flesh hanging from the alabaster bones like some repulsive ornament of its victims. Colossal jaws spread wide inside the pyramidal skull in a maniacally hideous grin, promising death to all they meet. I feel my blood start to pound in my ears, fear climbing through me, the sheer size of this creature would make Ahab run home to his mommy crying. I watch the beast rise, a hulking, writhing perversion of life and I feel queasy. I want to look away but feel a sick inability to stare anywhere else, or flee, in light of the fact that Orion, Atlas, and Starlet are all floating before it, eclipsed as tiny specks in its shadow, insignificant as ants. The beast looks like a perverse demonic version of a pelican eel I remember seeing in one of my marine biology books. I remember it because I thought it looked hideously warped at the time, but what was in front of me was so much worse. What was before me had teeth.
I watch Starlet back away slowly as the monster spots her, the magenta of her tail picking her out as an easy target. Suddenly something within the beast snaps and she moves away, dodging its gargantuan bite by inches. The bones which make up its enormous length, creak and groan like rusty door hinges in an eighties horror movie and it lets out a high pitched screech that pierces my ears and leaves me reeling, clutching my ears like a small child. My breath gets caught in my windpipe as I feel my nerves shredding with each passing second. I cannot look away as I feel my hand go tingly from the tightness of my grip. Orion, like any seasoned warrior takes the opportunity of the creatures divided attention and makes his move, throwing a dagger from short range and lodging it in the creature’s ocular cavity, which is at a loss for eyes. I wonder how it can see at all, as the deep holes of black drill themselves into my soul, terrifying me and
awakening in me the urge to flee. Orion doesn’t quite move in time and the creature makes a hairpin turn, slamming its tail down and narrowly missing him by inches.
My breath hitches in shock. Holy Crap, he’s going to get killed! Is my only thought. It carries through my mind on repeat as I watch him struggle to keep up pace with the creature which is fifty times his length. He dodges this way and that as I see Starlet backing away from the situation and taking cover behind a nearby rock formation. The ground vibrates like an earthquake as the tail makes another slash through the water and into the seabed. Plumes of sand shoot upward, making visibility practically nil. As the sand is held in the air for mere minutes I can’t help but feel myself go numb slightly in shock. Orion is fighting this thing … Is he nuts!?!?!?! I slide down the side of the boulder, my tail folding beneath me under the weight of my own fear. My ears are ringing and as I sit for a few seconds, debating whether or not to continue watching, the only sounds I can hear above my own panic are the rush of my blood and the shallow breathing escaping my lips. I turn as the sand clears and see Orion and Atlas both trying desperately to out manoeuvre the colossal length of the writhing, serpentine skeleton, and struggling. They’re so fast, and now I know why. They have to be. I’d always known Orion was well muscled and adept at fighting, but now I knew what for, and it scared the hell out of me. I watch him, fear paralysing me as he nods at his father and moves instantaneously, whipping his tail behind him and throwing his spear in one fluidly powerful movement. The spear doesn’t travel like I thought it would. I thought the water would have slowed it down, or altered its trajectory somehow. But no. The spear is obviously made of the perfect material, carved into the optimum shape for manoeuvring through the water, lands, lodging itself between two of the creature’s vertebrae and anchoring it to the seabed, making further movement impossible without having it dismantle itself. The beast roars, a sound that could deafen any normal human, and Atlas moves in, pulling a spear from his own sheath and letting it fly, landing it between the two highest bones of the creature’s spine. I realise what they’re doing before they do it.
Anchoring the length of its body to take out the mobility and advantage of its size. The speed with which they move is astonishing, faster than any dolphin, whale, or swordfish. I watch as they zoom, leaving flurries of bubbles in their wake. They move back from the writhing skeletal eel and then look to each other. Orion turns and they look towards the boulders and I know it’s time for me to leave. I swim as they both turn away, fast as I can, heart still pounding against my ribs in terror, leaving an ache in my chest. I hurry back to the Occulta Mirum, swimming as fast as my tail will allow with its untrained muscles. The unwelcome questions enter my head, What if he dies and I left? What if I have to do this alone? Can I do this alone? I’m hyperventilating, panicking as I feel the weight of hundreds of years of life, of fighting, of waiting for him to return from battle bearing down on my shoulders. I wonder now if I can do this. Be in this with him. Did I even have a choice? I don’t think the Goddess Atargatis would accept letters of resignation. I panic again, was I really considering giving up this life? Giving up eternal life? I hadn’t realised it before, but I’d been drafted. Drafted into a war I hadn’t known existed. A war that was as old as the sea itself. I had wondered why Orion had withheld from me why he was leaving and now I knew. I knew he had kept it from me because he wanted to give me a gift after all our love had taken from me. The gift of ignorance. For that, I would always be grateful.
Back in the apartment, I lay out on the bed flicking my tail in tormented slashes down through the water, leaving trails of bubbles behind it. The panic has gone now as I focus on my breathing, but the fear is still there waiting to pounce on me like a panther from the shadows. Orion moves through the doorway and places his helmet down on the sandstone table next to the bed with a thud, dulled by the water. I wonder if he knows I followed him. Why else would he leave on his armour? Maybe he wants to confess? I decide to play dumb, not wanting an argument. I sit up, relief welling up inside me as I look at him. I want to hold him close to me forever, never let him go out of my sight again.
“Hey.” I greet him in a cracked, tormented whisper and he looks over to me. His eyes are burning. Is he angry?
“So what did you do this afternoon?” He asks me, his back is turned to me as he starts unclipping his chest plate and moving to remove the bracers from his thick wrists.
“I should ask you the same question, what’s with the battle gear? Don’t you think it’s a little much for –” I begin my fake innocent interrogation, but he throws one of his bracers to the floor with a clang, cutting me off.
“Don’t lie to me, Callie. You followed me out to the fault lines. I know you were there.” He sounds angry.
“I’m sorry …” I begin but he throws down the other bracer too. It displaces sand from the floor slightly, making a miniature mushroom cloud.
“Did you like what you saw? Did you like finally uncovering exactly what it is we fight?” He raises one eyebrow and bends at the waist, picking his bracers up off the floor, dusting them off and placing them onto the table with his helmet.
“No … I –” I begin again but he cuts me off.
“Look, I’ve been doing this just a bit longer than you. You don’t have to like me all the time or the things I do. I left you alone and I know that was probably unfair. But you do have to trust me, Callie. You don’t know this world like I do. Down here, you don’t know what’s good for you yet. I do. I’m supposed to protect you from the darkness. I can’t do that if you don’t trust me enough to stay put when I have to go and fight. I need to know you’re safe, or how can I do my job properly?” His chest rises and falls rhythmically as he rants. I feel anger spark within me, a dim flame erupting.
“Do you honestly think if I’d known where you were going I’d have followed you?” I ask him rhetorically. “If I had known you were going to fight off creatures from the black lagoon, or Nessie’s demented cousin, I wouldn’t have followed you. You didn’t even think it was appropriate to tell me where you were going or why. Of course I followed you.” He looks shocked at my guts as I retort, trying to make him see my side of things.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to worry you.” He begins his justification but I shake my head and he stops.
“So vanishing for no reason in a hurry is going to make me what … calm?” I ask him and his eyes widen.
“I suppose it was pretty stupid of me to just take off.” He rubs the back of his neck in that way he does when he’s full of regret.
“Just a bit. I worry about you too, Orion. Just because you’re six and a half feet of manly intimidation and sheet rock doesn’t mean you can’t get hurt. Especially by the look of what I saw today.”
“I’m immortal, Callie. It’ll take a lot to finish me off, please don’t worry.” He floats down to the mattress as though he weighs no more than a feather and turns to me, stroking my face.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll do you a deal. I’ll stop worrying about you, the day you stop worrying about me.” I promise as I watch his hopeful expression turn into a smile and he faux pouts.
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“Yup. Take it or leave it.” He bends and kisses me slowly and I feel the tension that awakened with the rising of the beast unfurl slowly. He pulls away and strokes my hair as I lay back against his arm and I feel myself soften to jelly beneath his touch.
“So … before I left. You had a question for me?” He reminds me and I feel nervous again. The story I want him to recall is old, really old, and I don’t know whether I’m ready to hear it, or even if I want to deep down. I hold my breath and come to the conclusion that it’s not a case of wanting to know. I need to know.
“Yes.” I say quietly. “I want to know …”
“I know.” He says, cutting me off from the final three words.
“You do?” I look at him surprised and he gives a grim smile.
“Indeed. A
nd quite a tale it is too.”
ORION
Philippe canters, his dusty hooves hitting the hard ground repetitively beneath my rocking body. The wind blows gently, lifting my mahogany hair from my face as we reach the village. My heart feels heavy under the fading blue Cyprian sky and the thud of the hooves slows as we reach the house in which I have lived my entire life. It is 1571 and I see ships belonging to the Ottoman fleet on the horizon, my heart thuds at their black outlines, a signal of the death that is to come. My village is a small one and the people within its old weak walls bustle, preparing the fish for sale at the market on the mainland, a trade in which I can proudly say my father, bless his soul, was responsible for. I dismount Philippe, admiring his shiny black mane in the heat of the midday sun while I swallow nervously, fearful of what my mother will say to the news I have to impart. I must be strong, I am the man of the house now, and then there are my sisters to consider, so young and innocent. I swallow again looking out over the cliff top to the horizon where the sea meets the sky, feeling shaky and having to concentrate on standing upright. I stroke through the mane of my steed absentmindedly, calming myself with his inky strands of hair that slide between my fingertips. I can see the mainland from where I have returned in the distance and I close my eyes for a moment before turning away from the ocean and heading into the shady gloom of my home.
The walls are made from large cobblestones, built by my father and the other men in the village on their arrival here. A small opening in the wall homes a fireplace, where my mother stands working. My sisters sit in the corner, both sewing opposite ends of a tapestry that depicts the story of our arrival on this island. They notice me in the doorway, drop it on the floor at once, and rush over to my open arms. They are both seven years of age, twins of course, and my mother is seen by the rest of the village as some kind of miracle for being able to carry two babies within her womb. The twins are loved absolutely also, seen as a gift from the Gods, they are both beautiful too: blonde hair and inquisitively alert icy blue eyes that match my own, they have my mother’s hair, silkily smooth and white as snow it is so blonde. They leap into my arms and I struggle to keep upright at their weight on each side. The light is dim from a candle set in the corner but grows the more I stagger into the centre of the room. Near the fireplace my mother stands, her hunched shoulders indicating the weight we both must bear. Hearing the giggles of her daughters, she turns and a smile spreads across her angular face, she is a mirror of her daughters, icy blue eyes, pale skin, shockingly blonde hair, and a kind smile.
The Kiss That Killed Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 1) Page 22
