I met up with Nammu in the wyrm fields and got her armored up. I think she was excited to take a trip. It wouldn't take long. After a short joy ride, she'd make a wyrm hole and take me to the surface. I had the medallion that I always wore fully charged. And, with my new sea silk armor also imbued with Fomorian magic, I had a lot more I could draw from if I needed it. And, since using it was vital to keeping my vampirism at bay, I hoped I wouldn't experience any blood cravings at all.
This was my first attempt, though, at going to the surface to test it. So, really, there was no telling how it would work. And, I needed the Fomorian magic so I could shift forms. If I used it to tame the vampire within, well, I didn't know how quickly that would drain my power. No matter what happened, I'd learn a lot about myself in the process of making my way to Marie's. Probably a good idea, regardless. If we ever had to face a real threat again, it was better than I knew what my limitations were now before I had to deal with it in the heat of a battle—if the said battle required me to go to shore.
Nammu and I took off through the waters toward New Orleans. My new armor was tight-fitting but also flexible. I had it fitted so I could quickly grab it, if I shifted into dragon form, and still wear it in my human shape. It fit, tightly, around my tail. But if I cinched it up, it would fit me like a tight dress in human form. After too many occasions going to the surface having to find clothes post-shift, I'd learned my lesson. Now, I was prepared. And I'd had about a year to figure it out. This was a trial run, I supposed, on top of everything else I'd be experiencing for the first time to find out how well the armor adapted to my legs.
After a brief thrill ride, Nammu cast a wyrm hole closer to the coast. Diving out of the water, I leaped off of her back and quickly drew on my dragon's essence and assumed a miniature dragon form. I snagged my sea silk clothes out of the air before spreading my wings and taking off toward New Orleans' French Quarter.
Thankfully, it was the middle of the night. It was always hard to know what time it was in Fomoria since we couldn't see the sun. We generally operated on a cycle that corresponded roughly to human days but, apparently, we'd gotten out of sync by a few hours. It was the morning in Fomoria, but the sun hadn't quite risen yet over the city. The darkness of the night gave me enough coverage that I wouldn't have to worry too much about any humans spotting a dragon flying overhead.
I dove into an alley near Marie's head shop and landed behind a dumpster. I drew on some Fomorian magic and shifted into human form. I immediately felt it—the craving. I inhaled, pulling in a little more Fomorian magic, and the urge to bite the nearest human subsided. So far, so good.
I quickly got dressed. My armor didn't look much like anything that was in style in human culture, but it was better than walking around naked. Not necessarily an uncommon occurrence, especially at night, in the French Quarter. But I'd need a few drinks in my system before I'd even be vaguely comfortable streaking in public.
The bottom half of my armor fit quite well when I hiked it up over my knees. I'd almost forgotten how nice my legs were. A little thinner than before. And I felt them wobble a bit when I took my first steps. Par for the course when I hadn't walked for a year.
I wasn't sure if Marie's would be open at this hour, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it opened when I pressed on the door. The door dinged as I walked through—an alert to let Marie, or Chad, who usually worked there at Marie's side, know that someone was there.
Chad stumbled through the beaded curtain in flannel pajamas.
"Holy crap!" Chad exclaimed. "Long time, no see!"
"Do you guys ever lock this place up?" I asked.
Chad shook his head. "Not really. Marie gets visitors at all hours. Sometimes the issues are urgent, so I sleep in the back most of the time until someone shows. And here you are!"
I opened my arms. "Here I am!"
"Damn," Chad said. "Your eyes. They're red."
I cocked my head. "They are?"
"Look," Chad said, gesturing toward a mirror on the wall to the right of the head shop's counter.
"Sure enough," I said. "I'll be. I guess I am a vampire, after all."
"I heard that," Chad said. "How you doing with that?"
I shrugged. "So long as I have some magic to draw from, it feels the same as being human. But for a second there, I wasn't sure."
"Well, I do have to say, you make one hot vamper! You give Mercy Brown a run for her money."
"Thanks," I said. "Mercy is very pretty."
"She's hot, too," Chad said. "I'd do her. You know, if she wouldn't kill me if I tried."
I snorted. "Yeah, well, probably a good idea you don't try."
"Besides," Chad said. "I have a thing for blonds."
"Eat your heart out, honey," I said. "Or maybe I will."
Chad laughed a little—sounding just like Butthead from the Mike Judge cartoons. "Good one, Joni. You've got vampire jokes already."
I shrugged. "I suppose I do. Is Marie here?"
"Yup," Chad said. "She's in the back per usual."
"Not doing the nasty with Nico this time, right?" I asked.
Chad shook his head. "Nope. He's not here at the moment. Can't come right now, you know, since his human form is alive now."
"Right," I said. "I almost forgot about that. He's staked, right?"
"I guess," Chad said. "Not any of my business. Working with Marie this long, I've learned to keep myself out of most vampire affairs."
"Probably a good choice."
Chad reached behind him, parted the beaded curtain with his hand, and gestured with his other hand to direct me through. Poor guy probably just wanted some sleep. I didn't know how regularly Marie received visitors at this hour, but it must've been frequent enough that Chad stayed here pretty much all the time. Or, he didn't have any place to go. Like it was for Marie, the head shop must've also been his home.
As it usually did, the whole place smelled of incense. The odor was strong, a combination of so many scents that it was impossible to identify a single one. I wafted my hand through the air to clear the smoke. Marie sat in the middle o the haze, her legs crossed, in prayer, meditation, or whatever it was that voodoo people did to get their spiritual jollies.
"Welcome, La Sirene," Marie said, not even opening her eyes to see me.
"How'd you know I was here? You sense my spirit or something?"
Marie cocked her head. "Don't overthink it, Joni. I heard you and Chad talking in the other room. Come in, child. Let me get a good look at you."
I sat in front of Marie, crossing my legs. Funny how little things like that, sitting that way, you take for granted when you have legs. Sitting on your butt as a Mermaid isn't as comfortable. You're never balanced. Of course, when you're in water most of the time, sitting isn't a genuine concern either.
I played with my toes as I sat there, Marie looking me in the eye. Marie grunted.
"What is it?" I asked.
"You are as a vampire," Marie said. "But it's more than your nature keeping it at bay, La Sirene."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Vampires have a connection to the aspect of Baron Samedi, Loa of death. But you are already a Loa, La Sirene. You have an aspect of your own."
"So I'm fighting it off like my own nature is a vaccine or something to vampirism?"
"Not exactly," Marie said. "I cannot say what is happening. It is as though the two aspects, your own and the Baron's, are interacting in some way."
"But when I'm in my mermaid form, in Fomoria, I don't feel anything of the vampire nature at all. It's as it's always been—when I'm in that form, anyway. It's only when I take a human shape that this becomes an issue."
"That doesn't mean something isn't happening inside of you, dear. If we always were in tune with what happens within us, no sickness, no cancer, would ever take anyone by surprise."
I furrowed my brow. "You think this is like cancer?"
Marie shook her head, "No, child. I cannot say for certain what will ha
ppen. Perhaps, in time, your own nature as a Loa will overcome it, purge vampirism from your system. Maybe the interaction between your own aspect and the Baron's will lead to something new and unexpected, a leap forward in the evolution of the Loa. So far as I'm aware, you're the first Loa whose host body has been so infected."
I snorted. "This is my body. Not my host body."
"Six of one, dear. Half a dozen of the other. Have you ever lived in a house that did not originally belong to you?"
"Pretty much all my life," I said. "I mean, the Campbell plantation had always belonged to my family, but not me. And the house we lived in when we moved to St. Louis was more than a century old, no telling how many people lived there before us."
"And when you lived there, was the house merely the host that belonged to the original owners, or was it your house?"
"It was our house. My ma's and pa's, really. But you know, since I was their kid, I guess it was my house too."
"So long as you are in a body, it is your body, child. No matter who might have owned it before."
I shrugged. "I'll keep that in mind, you know, for some day later in eternity. I've always had this body, though. No one else has ever been inside of me."
Marie smirked.
"Oh, stop being childish," I said. "You know what I meant."
"I do indeed," Marie said. "Please keep me posted on any changes you experience. I'm quite curious to find out what will come of this metamorphosis."
"I'm not going to turn into some hideous sea monster or something, am I?"
"I don't imagine so," Marie said. "The changes I expect would be more subtle, internal, with only slight outward evidence, like your red eyes."
I figured I'd take the opportunity, you know, since monsters came up. "So, speaking of monsters, what do you know of the Kraken?"
Marie cocked her head, narrowing her eyes. "Why in the name of Bondye would you ask me about that?"
I shrugged. "I figured you know a lot about that sort of thing."
"That certainly tells me why you've posed the question to me. It does not tell me why you're asking the question at all. Has it made an appearance?"
"No," I said. "Not that I know of, anyways. Just doing some research, pretty much. Want to be prepared for anything, you know."
Marie furrowed her brow. "So after a year, hiding in Fomoria, you'd come here, risk experiencing your vampiric nature, on a research project?"
"Sounds dumb when you put it like that," I scratched my head.
"Because it would be, and you are too smart for that."
I sighed. "When you asked me if it returned, you posed that question like it's a real possibility. I could see it in your face, Marie. You were concerned for a second. Why is that?"
"I'll answer your question, but only after you stop avoiding mine."
I sighed. "I know it sounds dumb. But Agwe and I don't get each other most of the time. Not unless we're fighting something."
"So you want to summon the Kraken to help you with your relationship?"
I bit my lip. "It sounds a lot worse when you put it like that. And you said it can be summoned? I thought we'd have to go back in time to find it and bring it back."
"So you came to me, child?"
My eyes shifted back and forth. "Uh. Yeah. Is that bad?"
Marie stood up and lit a few candles. "The beast you call the Kraken is more than a giant squid, dear. If it were, I'd have no hesitation at all about you and Agwe taking it on together. The legends of the Kraken, however, speak of a creature far more terrifying than that. When it attacked ships centuries ago, it wasn't trying to destroy the seafaring vessels. It was seeking energy. The Kraken feeds off of it."
"Energy like what?" I asked.
"Every soul contains an energy of a kind, dear. As is your magic and mine."
"So if it lives that way, what happened to it? Ran out of enough to eat?"
"The Kraken, like your wyrms, belongs to the void. But its nature is completely different than your wyrms. If summoned, it will hunt any and every source of energy that can help it return to the void. And only once it's acquired what it seeks can it return at all lest by bringing itself into the void it shatters the divide between existence and nonexistence itself, between creation and pre- or non-creation."
"And if that happened, it would be like the voidbringer all over again."
"Sort of," Marie said. "But this would not be some kind of slow-moving force that gradually consumed the world. If the Kraken were sent to the void unsatiated, and the divide was shattered, it would be like the world ceased to exist in an instant."
"Well, obviously, we can't let that happen."
"So if someone summons the Kraken, there is no stopping it at all until it runs its course. To try and kill it, otherwise, would be catastrophic. There's only one creature, according to legend, which was able to kill krakens. And that creature is even more ancient than the monster you seek. The only way to stop the Kraken is to give it what it seeks."
I grunted. "Well shit. I don't know that would be much of an adventure for Agwe and me."
"Not unless you just like sitting back and watching people die, magical worlds get swallowed, and the like."
"Yeah," I shook my head. "I like the occasional dark comedy, but it doesn't sound like that would be much fun at all."
"Besides," Marie added, "even if you wanted to summon the Kraken, I couldn't tell you how to do it."
"Would the wyrms know? Since, you know, they come from the void, too?"
"Hard to say," Marie said. "What the Kraken appears to be, if he's visible at all, in the void, in non-existence, might not be the same as what he becomes when summoned in the sea."
"What purpose does a creature like that serve to the void?" I asked.
"What purpose does a chigger or a mosquito serve to the earth?"
I shrugged. "No clue. I suppose they're a part of a food chain, an ecosystem."
"Likewise, a creature like the Kraken might not have any obvious purpose, not one we might discern from the vantage point of entities that exist. But within the void, I suppose, each thing that is within the domain of nonexistence is, or is not, for a purpose."
"Or nonpurpose?"
Marie stroked her chin. "I don't think nonpurpose is a word."
"Then it doesn't exist, so it might be a word, that isn't a word, in the void that doesn't actually exist, even though it is real."
"Joni, you're making my brain hurt."
"Sorry..."
Marie laughed. "You miss the point. When we say existence, we mean existence as we know it. A particular mode of being. There are other modes of existence, which we might think of as non-existence for no other reason than it doesn't accord with our real experience. We can't comprehend anything apart from our experience of existence.
"My brain hurts too, now, by the way."
"That ache only signals that you are close to comprehending the point I'm making," Marie said. "Many presume that all reality, every mode of being, can be discerned by humanity. They believe that the sciences are the final arbiter of truth. But humans, even Fomorians or vampires, are limited beings who exist in a limited sphere. What we see and understand only scratches the surface of all that is true. It is not our task, then, to understand it all. Our job is to simply revere and honor it all."
"So you're basically saying, 'don't mess with sasquatch,'" right?"
"Well, we were talking about the Kraken. If you want to screw around with Big Foot, be my guest. He's a bit grumpy though when he's hungry."
"I wasn't talking about sasquatch literally. I was referring to those commercials. Never mind. You're suggesting that if I try to summon the Kraken, I might be opening up a can of worms I'd regret."
"Precisely," Marie said, smiling wide.
"So, how do you summon him, exactly?"
"Joni!" Marie said, raising her voice for the first time since I met her. "I told you I don't know!"
"I'm joking," I said. "Chill."
Marie huffed and shook her head. "There's only one who might even know how to summon the Kraken at all, and it isn't me?"
"Some witch or mambo?" I asked.
Marie shook her head. "Your husband."
"So it all comes full circle," I chuckled. "You know, he told me to find us an adventure and surprise him. Go figure I'd pick something that would be incredibly dumb to attempt, and only he'd know how to do."
Marie shrugged. "You could go on a hike, you know."
"Have you ever seen Agwe when he shifts into legs? He has the lower body muscle definition of Big Bird."
"Then go canoeing."
"Seriously? We ride wyrms. Wouldn't paddling an aluminum boat down a river be dull by comparison? And aren't there any adventures that don't involve us having to take human form? Takes a lot of energy for me to keep my vampiric urges at bay."
"That's your domain, La Sirene. The ocean is a big place. I'm sure you can find an adventure worthy of the two if you keep your eyes open and look for it."
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALL IN ALL, it was the least satisfying trip to Marie's I'd ever made. Every time before when I left, I had a new direction, a purpose, an adventure to own. This time, I left her head shop less sure about what to do next than I was walking in. Of course, it wasn't like I was approaching her with some kind of world-altering crisis. A lot of girls think the world spins on its axis, powered by their love lives.
Saving the world was tough. I'd done it twice—at least. In truth, probably a few other times back in the day. I knew how to save the world. Saving my love life, well, that was on a whole other level of impossible.
It wouldn't take long after I touched the water in mermaid form before Nammu would show up. Evan and Finn would see me on the map. They'd send Nammu to pick me up. That was the usual protocol, at least.
My conversation with Marie hadn't been long. Nammu had only dropped me off a few hours ago. So long as I had my vampirism under control, I figured I'd take a few more hours to enjoy a walk through the city.
Don't get me wrong. A swim can be nice and meditative, too. But the feeling of the morning air in my lungs, even the pavement still cool from the night on my bare feet, was refreshing. It wouldn't take long before the sun heated up the sidewalk, and going barefoot would be off the table.
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