by Cassie Power
That got him to shrug.
“Yes. I can do that. Would that really help you? I don’t want to scare you. I mean, I’m still scrambling here, trying to get you to like me. I don’t suppose you secretly like alluring men with magical powers? I’m really fun in bed, if that helps?” It was kind of true, at least it could be. He’d always been in one form when doing that, but taking other shapes was more than possible for him. It would take practice to get some nice-looking ones around, but it could be done.
For Merry.
He’d never, ever, told anyone else about what he was before. Not in all his life that had been longer than he could accurately guess at. There was no time on the ice. Not in any way that could be truly counted. Even days were a hazy concept that meant little.
Most of his life had been lived with watches and calendars, but his being had shaped him differently than Merry would understand.
Except, there was still hope. She was clever and hadn’t even pulled away from him yet. Her body was pressed up against him, for safety and warmth. She smelled alluring as well. Interested and only a little scared.
“I know that one, from earlier. Still, I think you might be right. We’ll want daylight anyway, for that kind of thing. Possibly pastries. That really does sound better than horror stories in a storm, in the dark.” She moved then, causing Dan to feel a fleeting fear in his middle.
Until she loaded the stove with another piece of wood and came back to him, cuddling close.
“I have to admit, part of me is saying that you’re full of it. You know that, right? I mean, magic? Shape shifting killers from the ice… Billionaires and their heirs. Only you didn’t say that, did you? You said you were Danson Meeres.” Her voice tightened down a bit.
“That’s right. Just to answer the next question, yes I do have identity papers to prove that. In here with us. I can also prove that I’m my own grandpa. Not in a confusing way. It’s all an act. I can look old or young. Do other things as well. I can show you all of this in the morning. There, that isn’t scary or confusing at all.”
There was a shrug, her body still close to him. Holding on to him, as if she feared he was going to leave. That or prove so unstable that his mind would fly away. That wasn’t going to happen, but it had to be close to what she was thinking.
Still, her words were on topic. Focused in a way that most wouldn’t be able to manage, given everything.
“A little. I probably won’t properly freak out until I see you change. I mean, so far we could have just been tricked. Special effects, hypnosis, I don’t know what, maybe LSD in the cocoa… but it could be that kind of thing. We don’t even know who’s been doing it. Why, either.”
“I know. So far it seems pretty harmless. Storms aside. If it was drugs we probably wouldn’t be seeing the same things like that. I’m not immune to them, but I’ve had LSD before. It tends to leave me loopy, but not experiencing things like that. Well, glowing walls, but no creatures coming through them.”
That news got her to pull away, suddenly, and a bit sharply.
“You’ve taken drugs?”
He nodded.
“Not recreationally. It was part of a program to see if we could increase psychic effects. It works in some people. Not me, but a few got great results, for short time periods. Then they tended to go too far into the visions for it to help anything. I’ve been involved in magic that works, so we tried it out, just in case.”
“Um, like this stuff magic, or… I don’t even know the right questions here. We’ve gone full woo-woo and the crazy train to the funny farm doesn’t seem to have any stops right now.”
It was a colorful way to put it. Dan smiled at the words.
“It… That really is my world. Well, half what you live, half this kind of thing. I end up looking for a lot of strings in pictures and for CGI manipulation on videos. Even with real things being out there, most of the time people end up just being wrong about what they’re seeing. I mean, my own people are probably thought of as werewolves most of the time, even though we look nothing like that in our hunting skins. The Detroit team calls everything furry a werewolf. I’d be insulted if it weren’t so cute.” The old terms for things were coming back a bit. Not totally, since he had to translate the ideas into English for Merry.
That wasn’t too hard. It wasn’t his first language, or even the second, but he’d spoken it for well over a hundred years. Things came to him pretty easily that way now. Not that it had ever been really hard for him.
There was a bemused snort. One that didn’t fit being fifteen minutes off of seeing high strangeness for the first time. Then, in her own way, Meredith Seaford was a professional. What they’d just seen was close to what she was looking for in life. At least it was the job she had. The one that he’d hired her for. The entire show crew had their own abilities that way. Merry was the brains of the whole thing, even if she didn’t realize it. It was her science and logic that let them find the rare things that were truly outside of normal understanding. Monty, the show runner and director, was great on the business side.
Their talent, the on-screen people, were mainly psychic, even if they didn’t know it. That had been tested before they’d signed on at all. It was part of why they screamed and jumped at things that didn’t show up on video all the time. It wasn’t just them overacting, they really saw and heard things that the others didn’t all the time.
The small bundle of incredible that he was holding squirmed a bit.
“If you aren’t crazy, then that’s what we need to focus on, isn’t it? Tomorrow. We need the light. At least, we need for the snow to stop coming down. Then… How do we find the person doing this? They could be anywhere.”
“Not really. If it’s one person and not a group, then they probably have to be pretty close. No one would sit in Florida and cause persistent sightings all the way up here. There just wouldn’t be a reason to, for one thing. We’re in the neighborhood that way at the very least. A group… That might change things. I can’t think of why they’d be doing it like this, even if it were more than one individual.”
It was an eerie thing, but he stopped and just thought for a while. Touching Merry for personal comfort, but also because she was his. That was new and could still go away. Probably the next day when he changed for her. It was one thing to see the odd and bizarre in the dark, away in a place that wasn’t where you lived.
Seeing the world as being very different could cause anyone to run away. It was a survival trait. Most beings had it.
Except the nomads. Well, them, wolverines and honey badgers. They didn’t run when scared. Fear, most often, simply seemed like anger. At least to Dan. When things went wrong, his first idea was to fight. It had taken him over a hundred years to learn to truly master that part of himself.
Merry pulled him down a bit. Into where she sat.
“They might be after you. I mean, billionaire, supernatural… That doesn’t fit though, does it?”
“Right. If they wanted Danson Meeres they would have come for me directly. Or what happened would have been more pointed. I only came here at all because the other teams were busy. I probably should have come alone, but there was a small chance that this was something interesting but safe enough for the show team.” Grinning, his white teeth showing a little, Dan rolled his eyes. “Believe it or not, I don’t want the show to tank too much in the ratings. You’re my people, so I have to look out for you, if I can.”
That got a wicked laugh, suddenly.
“We just need to catch some of this on camera. If it shows at all. Then I can do an on-screen interview about what it seemed like to me. That even gives us a reason for finding whoever is doing this, or whatever, doesn’t it? Other than to just punch them in the nose for scaring me like that. Plus, blizzards are really inconvenient. You probably didn’t notice that part, what with having me here to keep you distracted the whole time.”
It was a deflection, since they were still trapped there. Except that they really weren’t. Dan
could leave at any time, and that meant Meredith would be able to get out at need. Even if he had to carry her, they could do it in a pinch.
“I can search tomorrow. Just go out and see if I can find a trace of magic around here. If the storm passes by then. Otherwise that will probably make it harder.”
“Yeah. All that snow. The wind would make it hard, too.” Almost as if reading her mind, the entire world shook a bit as a massive gust hit the outside of the sturdy log cabin. For a moment Dan wondered if the roof was going to come off, but the old man that had built the place was proving his powers. He’d overbuilt almost everything. It was making the purchase more than worthwhile, given what they were facing. Hopefully the neighbors in the area would fare as well.
“I was thinking that it would just be hard to sense the magic. The snow doesn’t bother me that much. I should go and see to the others in the area. The people that live near here? This place is very strong, but I don’t know that they all are. I do know where they are though, on the map. There are six places inside ten miles of here.”
Merry got up, making him move. Groaning as she bent over. Forcing her body to stretch.
“Ouch. Well, that will be fun. I should get some sleep first, if we’re going out in the morning. You haven’t really done that in over a day, so… I can stay with the fire out here? I want a blanket, since I intend to sleep part of the time.”
“Ah. This is when I should be telling you that I need to stay up, to fight the attackers off. That or how my people don’t sleep. I can go without, but I really will feel better if I can lay down for a few hours. Still, if you don’t mind getting up every few we can keep a good fire going and share the bed.”
“Hmmm” She stretched again, then moved in and wrapped her arms partway around his muscular middle. “I think I can do that. If nothing else, moving a bit might keep me from freezing up totally. I wouldn’t have even thought of the other people in the area. That…”
She went silent, then sighed.
“Um… We could do something again? I’m kind of amped up.” She seemed almost shy about it, as if he were going to say no. That wasn’t happening. She was far too wonderful for that.
“We should. Here or…”
That got her to take his hand, then lead him away again. It was actually a bit more fun the second time. They had a chance to explore each other. The female form wasn’t a thing that he didn’t know, of course.
There was a difference when you were in love.
It was interesting, since Dan had pretty much thought he was immune to the idea. In fact, if asked even days before, the very idea of him liking Meredith more than any other person he met at random would have seemed so unbelievable that he would have just smiled and nodded at the strange person that had suggested it.
There it was anyway. That tickling in his middle that tried to reach up and rend his soul away every time his fingers weren’t in contact with her. The soft skin was in the end, just flesh. A thing that one like him knew very well. The fact that it was part of her… filled him with joy. A pure bliss that was unexpected, to say the very least.
Terror was in there as well.
The idea that she might go away occurred to him. A loss that he was ready for, since he’d told her about himself already. He’d change and that would prove too much for his new love. Then she’d leave, possibly telling the whole world about what he really was.
Except that she wouldn’t do that. No, she’d just quit her job and run away, to gain distance from him. After all, telling the world about a man who could change shape, who was also a billionaire… Well, those rumors were common, actually. Normally people claimed that the very rich could turn into reptilian aliens who ate human flesh.
Which, not for the first time, he had to wonder about. The ones that he’d met hadn’t been nomads, but that didn’t mean they might not be something else like that. The trick there was that none of them were around enough people that vanished. Taking from the human herd was visible, if you knew how to look. It had been one of the only reasons that he’d let Merry’s team come in the first place. No one from the area was missing. Not that had been registered anywhere.
It was one of the reasons that he was back in bed, lounging and staying awake, running his hands slowly over the most lovely being he’d ever seen.
Smiling, he rested his head on the pillow, looking at her as she dozed off, after they were done. Half asleep or more, she reached out and touched him, snuggling closer. Probably for warmth, since the idea that she’d love him already, after so little time, was insane. That he felt that way…
Well, that was real. He had to admit it and act accordingly, or else he’d make mistakes. For instance, thinking that he could hide himself from her and have her in his life.
That was tempting. Pretend that he’d been playing games with her, to not seem as strange. To keep her with him just a little longer. That wouldn’t work, in the end. Meredith Seaford was an amazing woman, but she was at her core a person of logic and common sense. Also, a tenacity that hadn’t been expected. A real fighter, even if that meant doing so physically against nine hundred pound hairy men that could walk through walls.
Out of any hundred people that he’d ever met, perhaps six of them would do that kind of thing when faced with a fearsome unknown. Even brave soldiers would have frozen at first. His Merry had moved, thinking that had happened to him. Seeking to protect them both from harm, instead of fleeing or screaming uselessly.
A feeling of pride came back to him then. Certainly, she hadn’t needed to do it at the time, but that it had been what she’d meant to do was impressive on a level that left him feeling extra warm inside.
So he held her. Eventually he slept, finding dreams that included her.
It was, in the end, nearly perfect.
Several times he woke up, to find her gone. Only for a few moments, tending the fire needed to keep them alive. Oh, he wasn’t going to freeze to death in the temperatures that they had going on, but she just might. He also knew that she probably hadn’t understood that about him yet.
That he wasn’t exactly human. That would come.
There was, deep inside of him, a sense of hope at the same time.
“After all, my love, what if you’re the one who can understand? The one who is just for me?”
He’d been lonely for a long time. Not constantly. It wasn’t a biting thing that filled his days with dread, but now, after a taste of not being alone again, he had to crave more of it. That was going to be hard, when morning came and he had to prove to her that he was of a different nature than her kind. When the most likely thing to happen was her pulling back from him in horror.
Still, he had the moment. So, falling back to sleep, since he needed it, even if some magician was going to wake him up with a new vision he didn’t doubt, or an attack of some kind. If so, the wizard was as evil as he was annoying. He reached out and took her hand. It was warm. Small as well, if only compared to his own.
Delicate and splendid.
He let himself stay there, until light peeked through the window. Then, wondering what the day would bring, he got up. Regardless of anything else, they needed to eat. That meant making food, which was, in their new relationship, his duty.
Breaking from his normal habits, he decided to make something special for her. It wouldn’t change anything, later, but for the moment it felt right.
Like he should keep her for as long as possible.
Even if that was measured in mere hours.
Chapter eleven- Merry
Waking up to the scent of wood smoke and pancakes got Merry to smile even before she opened her eyes.
“Even if you are a bit imaginative, my love, I think I’ll keep you.” She had to struggle to get up, still feeling half dead, sore and so stiff that she nearly wanted to ask if staying in bed all day was an option.
It wasn’t, since Dan was right. There were other people in the area and if they could get out, they needed to make sure ever
yone was fine. Also, they had to go and find whoever was bugging them. Mainly to see if laying down a hurting was what they had to do, or if they could try something else, instead. What that was, she didn’t know.
The idea that they might have to kill people in order to survive felt right. Not good, or happy, but like that was the only thing that could possibly happen. If magic was suddenly real, or more likely, a thing that had always been there, brushing up against her without her being aware of it, then the rules as she’d known them had changed. She couldn’t love that, but the truth was, either Merry got her act together and accepted what was demonstrably real, or she didn’t.
That second one wasn’t happening.
She knew what she’d seen the night before. More than that, it had really been all in her head, according to her current expert on the subject. That seemed far more likely than a real bigfoot with the ability to walk through solid matter without breaking the back of their little house open.
The thought got her to smile, even as she stood, stretched by bending over and stifled a gasp. After all, it wasn’t her tiny cabin. In her mind, for some reason, she was taking it over. Along with her new lover. Her love. That sounded insanely fast, but she wasn’t letting him get away too easily or anything. It had sounded to her like staying together was the plan. Even after she’d put out, which was a good sign.
Now all she had to do was not let the stress of what they had to get done that day force her into making poor relationship decisions.
“How likely is that? Your track record… Obviously not that good. I’d guess an eighty percent chance of making a total and complete hash out of it.” Except that she didn’t know how to cook and wasn’t totally certain that she knew what went into a hash, so even that wasn’t going to come to fruition properly on the relationship side of things.
She kept moving, even though she wanted to down a few fistfuls of pain relievers or possibly start an Oxycontin habit. Her back and legs felt bad enough that she truly would have called it a day already, if things weren’t so serious.
