New story, new characters, and all thoughts & criticism are very much welcome! Lyrics from Joan Jones's Wide Eyed Devil.
Ripples Part One
And I will sing you a song while you fetch me my last meal
If I want to.
That night, Zeke went from the grave to the lake as he always did, and watched her. He watched her with his lips parted, and his eyes huge and wondering in the darkness.
She never knew he was there; of course she didn't. Hidden in the shadows spread over him like moth's wings, his eyes followed the trails left by the soft slide of her body. He had never seen her face, or anything more than a flash of a shoulder, a foot, a fall of wet hair. He didn't need to - that wasn't what he came for.
His hands were pressed flat on the ground, his spine curved as a longbow as he leaned to listen to her voice echoing out across the night.
It was a lament she sang, about a lost lover beyond the sea. And every word trembled as if her heart was breaking.
He knew now why men spoke of sirens. She was beautiful, she was dangerous - and her music wrapped around his heart like a web. That song throbbed through his veins like the promise of a heartbeat next to his, a promise as yet unmade and unknown. He ached with every sound, each note plucking on parts of his memory he had thought lost.
He couldn't help himself - every night, he swore he would not let his feet draw him down this path. Every night, he crouched by the waters, and threw back his head in a silent, unending scream at the agony and the brilliance of her song. It echoed through him, made him feel real again, just for a few moments.
An atheist seeing God, he could not help himself.
It was becoming harder and harder not to call out to her. Harder to leave when he heard her swim towards the shores so he would not see her as she was, but as he imagined her. Harder not to step into the light and tell her that she was not alone in the world with her pain, that her song echoed in him and made him wish to be better.
But Zeke knew - he had learned it the hardest way of all - that nothing would ever match his dreams.
No, he couldn't bear to know.
It never occurred to him that he might not have any say in the matter.
X - X - X - X - X
In the empty throne room, the boy's too bold and bright for her pallid world. He stands there like he belongs - his shoulders back and his head high, and his eyes meeting hers fearlessly - even though nothing but her hollow heart belongs in this prison.
She likes that in him.
His audacity amuses her, a breeze blowing over the ashes of her life to rouse a glow. And he's familiar - so achingly familiar. The tangled gold of his hair reminds her too much of old loves: often she wonders if he'd let her touch it, run her curled and cramped fingers through it. Probably he would, she thinks, if he thought it would win him favour or power.
Power; it's always what they want from her, the few who are clever enough and brave enough to find her. They want her secret; her deathless existence.
Some flinch back from her, eyes wide, frightened by her appearance. She hasn't seen herself in many years, but knows she is a monstrosity. Her hair is fraying, remaining only in clumps. It clings to the folds of her skin, though even that has begun to slough off and putrefy. Sores run along her forearms, screaming red mixing with sickly grey-green.
So you're back again, she says, her mental voice as strong and musical as it was in her prime. She no longer speaks aloud. My beautiful one. No tribute this time, I see.
His eyes flash, a startling lagoon blue. She could plunge into his stare, drown herself in his youth and his vivacity. She chooses not to; he would probably not survive the experience.
"You see me. Isn't that tribute?" he answers with that charming arrogance. And with more perception than she thought he had. Yes, she likes beautiful things.
She does not like his lack of respect.
Your presence? He winces as her voice saws into his thoughts. Pain is a good teacher, she knows that well. You are a beggar at my door, nothing more.
A lie, but a calculated one.
In the graveyard silence, his voice is irreverently loud, anger barely held back. Silk on her ears, wrapping her in his youth, his lavish indifference of how good it is to be young, strong, beautiful. "And if I'm such a nuisance, why invite me in? Or is this just a stupid game, a way for an ugly old crone to pass the time?"
The words are like broken glass, embedding themselves into her skin. Stupid that they should hurt her so, but they do.
Take care not to confuse bravery with arrogance. The first will keep you alive. The second will get you killed.
A quick lash of her power, and his back arches, his mouth stretches wide so she can see the line of his teeth - his knees give and he is on the ground, his heavy breathing muffled by the stones.
"I'm still alive, aren't I?" he says at last. When he looks up, only the hint of sullenness breaks through his control - and she is impressed.
You will be more than that soon, she murmurs.
His flashing smile is the mirror of another, more familiar, and for a moment she too is young and beautiful, waiting for the music to begin so she can dance and dance and see that smile endlessly-
"Thank you." So polite. So careful. Yes, he will do.
She beckons him close, and he obeys, lying to himself that it is necessity rather than obedience that weighs his steps. His pride may undo him, as it undid her long ago; in him, she sees uncanny flickers of herself, in that lazy walk, that casual smile as he kneels. His head remains unbowed, staring up at her.
You know, she murmurs, reaching out a hand to caress his hair idly. It's as soft as she thought, bristling just a little under her cramped fingertips. The times are changing, boy.
"The times always change."
Wrong, she wants to say. Time loops in on itself over and over, we repeat the days of our life in spirals and circles, curling around our old mistakes, wrapping them in new errors, new slips - we climb the same slope only to slide down it again on different pebbles.
Something of her thoughts must have shimmered in her face; his eyes flare, fierce and almost fiery if not for the pure aquamarine flecks that mark him as water's child, always water. "If nothing changes, why am I here? Why are you helping me if you think nothing will change?"
She thinks of all the others who came to her. So many over the long scrape of the years, children and men and women. Part of her heart says nothing can change, nothing dead can change, but the other part...
Hope is a dreadful thing, she answers finally.
He doesn't understand her; too young to envision loss and suffering as she has known them.
No more, she vows to herself. I will wind back the years, and this time, I will make no mistakes.
X - X - X - X - X
Morning burst onto Ryars Valley like an aspiring starlet, in a blast of gold and glitter. Light glittered on the lake, dashing away the stifling dark to replace it with flurries of shadows and shimmering heat.
It woke Delphine Thetis from a nightmare, and strangled the scream in her throat.
Breathing hard, she tried to make sense of it, but the dream was draining away into nothing. Only flashes remained, like burnished bones.
A bloody cross.
The roar of fire, the smothering smoke.
And eyes - striking, unswerving eyes, that caught with a copper and inhuman sheen. His eyes...
Yes - him. That much she knew.
A polite rap on the door, then her father ambled in, knocking away the last scraps of her dream. His glasses sat askew on his nose as they invariably did, and a cup of tea steamed in his hands.
"Coming to the evening swim tonight, idleness?" he teased. "Your mother says Don Ivan will be there, and he's quite the catch, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows at the pun.
The horrifying thought of Don Ivan dashed the dream from her. Another night spent trying to remove his wandering hands. Phi cursed her mother's single-minded conviction that he was perfect for her. He might be one of the most powerful dolphin shapeshifters, and he might even be handsome as they came, but she had seen a side of him far, far different from his public persona.
He frightened her.
But she couldn't tell her parents that; she had tried once, and they hadn't believed her. Abandoned to her fear, she had done all she could to avoid Don and his friends. So she plastered on a fake smile and said only,"Dad, I'm not interested in Don. He thinks he's the biggest fish in the sea."
"Teenage ego, love. Your mother's determined to match you up with some lad. We're only a small pod, and she wants you to snaffle some eligible bachelor." He winked. "Just like she did."
"Not Don." Phi wrenched open her curtains. "Not ever. And if she doesn't like it, she can go fish."
"Good one," her father said, nodding solemnly. Bad jokes were a Thetis trademark, though some of the other merpeople seemed to find it vulgar. "But Don's not as bad as you think - his heart's in the right place. You might even find you change your mind about him in time. Now come on, love, you'll be late for school, and I know you don't want that! You've got that maths test this afternoon, haven't you?"
She pulled a face. "Thanks for reminding me. Last day of school and I have an exam. Now I really want to get up."
"Will crumpets tempt you?" he asked hopefully, with the little winsome smile that nearly stripped the years from him, if not for his silver hair. "I even bought some raspberry jam."
Phi brightened.
"We can go through differential equations while you eat," he added, and rushed out of the room before she had a chance to hurl anything after him.
Another day. Another day of trying to survive pod politics and other people's expectations. Trying to forget Don Ivan, though he stalked her dreams most nights until she woke clammy and cold, cradling her arm.
When I'm old enough to leave the pod, she thought, it will all be over.
But until then, she was trapped.
She looked at the sun streaming like honey through her window, and heard the fluting trills of the house martens that nested outside her window. Far off, she heard the distant hum of Mr Wallis down the road, mowing his lawn like he did every Monday, still drunk from the night before, and inhaled the fragrant scent of cut grass.
Even the damned can enjoy summer, Phi thought, and smiled.
X - X - X - X - X
"God, he's such a babe." The wistful sigh was Celia Slone, who was plaiting her dark hair again, fingers moving deftly. "Look at that body - just look. How am I going to survive a whole summer without it?"
Phi ignored her, too absorbed in trying to find something she could eat without feeling like the percussion section of an orchestra had organised a rehearsal in her stomach.
"You'll cope," she said absently. "Did anyone tell them lettuce isn't a vital ingredient of curry?"
"Curry!" The Asian girl flung her hands in the air. "Our beautiful, hot, charming gym teacher is standing over there, and you're worrying about curry?"
Phi lifted her eyes from the highly dubious contents of her plate to see the amused grins of her friends. "Cee, he's twenty three. He's engaged. And he gets furry."
Her friend countered almost instantly, hawkish eyes dancing. "He's experienced, he understands commitment, and...and..."
"Go on," prompted the lanky, grinning boy half-asleep on Phi. He lifted his head off her legs briefly to widen mocking dark blue eyes. "Tell us how dating a guy who eats intestines can be good."
"He eats lots of protein," finished Celia triumphantly. "Hah, see, perfect in every way. Please, Finn, tell me you don't want to just cover him in ice- cream and lick it off."
"I don't, actually," Finley Farrier said dryly, rolling onto his back so he was looking up at Phi. "Mr Jubatus and ice-cream...uh, no thanks."
"I'm more a fudge sauce man, myself," put in Riose Orage from his unabashed sun-bathing..
Finn only shook his head briefly, and carried on. "But if we're talking about my darling Delphine here, now..." He reached up to give her a smacking kiss on the lips. "Ice-cream or no ice-cream, she's the most tempting thing in my eye-line."
Considering the other things filling his view were the sky, Riose and an overflowing garbage can, Phi didn't attribute too much to that.
"Unhand me, you ruffian," she declared, wriggling out of his grasp with just the faintest grin threatening her pokerfaced expression.
"Or what?" His playful, wide smile was as outlandish as his flaming red hair.
She leaned over him and he looked alarmed. "Or I'll tell everyone you dye your hair."
He let go. "It's real and you know it!" he said indignantly. One hand placed over his heart, Finn was back into theatrical mode and gazing at her with soulful eyes. "I fear, my lady fair, even you could not bring me back such ignominy. Though...a kiss from your divine lips might."
"A kiss where, exactly?" she inquired, and could only grin in delight as a faint flush spread up his pale skin.
It was an archetypal summer day; the air simmering, thrashing the earth into a forge. Everyone was enjoying the heatwave.
Celia Slone had her ultra-healthy lunch of chocolate cake and crisps spread around her like a sacrifice, sighing with bliss at every spoonful of the mousse that was the coffee-cream of her skin. Just as heavenly was the sculpted face of Riose, his eyes half-closed.
Phi had long ago had her hopeless crush on Riose, and just as quickly gotten over it. However, she couldn't help but admire the elegant carriage as he sat, back perfectly straight, hands on his knees, soaking in the heat. His mouth was set into the faintest of smiles against his golden skin. Vampire - and proud of it - Riose never even pretended to humanity.
"Stop teasing him," the vampire advised now, without opening his eyes. "And Finn - just screw her and get it over with."
"Well!" she gasped.
"Oh, come on..." Riose did open one eye, the ocean colour startlingly bright against his wavy dark hair. "We can all feel the chemistry. Entertaining though this constant will-they-won't-they game is, and it always gives us something to gossip about behind your backs, it gets tiring. And besides, I've got twenty bucks on you two making it before next Thursday, so hurry up, already."
"Last of the great romantics." The new voice had a husky purr to it, and Phi looked up to see the slinky figure of Joana Katter bend down, one hand on her hip and the other stroking Riose's jaw. "What do you say to your potential dates? Come on, baby, I've got a bet riding on me riding you?"
"Jeez, Jo," muttered Celia through a mouthful of crisps. "You're getting as bad as him."
The girl laughed, and crumpled down onto the grass. "Nah, I'm the one he's got the bet with and I could use some easy money. And Cee - quit ogling Jepar, okay? He may be your hot gym teacher, but I have to hunt with him."
"Tell her about the intestines," begged Finn. "Please, please, make her shut up about him."
Jo slanted him a wicked look from those lime-green eyes. Wildcat and wild girl, she had a love of mischief. "I haven't seen his intestines, darling."
"You know that wasn't what I meant."
She only chuckled. "Sorry Cee, but it's hard to want a guy when you seen him gulping down raw liver."
Phi couldn't stop the grimace - vegetarian by choice, if not by nature, the thought of her supernatural friends hunting made her stomach churn. It had been that way ever since she had been taken for a meeting with the local Pack as a child; aged eight, and too trusting, she had never forgotten it.
After all, it haunted her dreams every night.
"Now, now," Riose chided, but gently. "Don't pull that face, Delphine. Different strokes for different folks."
"I find that it's pretty much universal below waist level," chipped in Jo, with a curling smile of her icy-pink mouth. "And don't you go starting anything, Riose. You know how Phi feels about us carnivores - and we respect that."
"You always assume I'm going to start trouble," grumbled the lamia. "I'd just like to point out that every single piece of trouble I have been in has been down to Finn."
The redhead gawped. "Moi? I'm innocent as the night is long!"
"Sweetie, it's summer," murmured Phi, ruffling his hair. It was soft to her touch, falling naturally into tiny spikes. Just like petting a cat, she thought, and decided to keep it to herself. "And you did suggest dyeing Don Ivan's clothes while he was showering."
They all grinned at the memory.
"Helping him come out of the closet. I swear, I thought pink was his colour," protested Finn. He batted his eyelashes. "Turned out angry puce was though. I've never seen so many veins ready to pop in my life."
"You've never met Ross then," Riose said softly. Phi knew he had had a less than conventional childhood as the brother of Therese Orage. Part of that had included some time spent with the notorious assassin Ross, apparently.
"Happily not." The witch was silent, but only briefly. Finn was never quiet long. His tone was light, airy almost. "So, Phi, when's the wedding?"
"Soon as Brad Pitt's divorced," she said flippantly. "What are you on about, Finn?"
"Don Ivan? You and him on a bicycle made for two?"
Baffled, she looked around at her friends. All of them were watching her; Celia had stopped eating her junk food. This was serious.
"Do you know something I don't?"
"Your parents and his have been having lots of long, intimate meetings," admitted Finn. He wouldn't meet her eyes anymore, fiery head ducked. He plucked at the glass blades nervously. Not a good sign.
"So?" she said. "They always have meetings. Pod business. Dad doesn't do it all on his own, you know, and even though he and Mr Ivan don't get on, they still have to look after the pod."
"Don's been strutting around." That was Jo, her voice mint-cool, a little ring of disapproval on it. "Saying that he's going to be the next pod leader. Wants your dad's job, darling. And my guess is he thinks your dad's daughter is the best way to get it."
Riose cleared his throat. "Phi - he's been saying things about you. Personal things."
The little... "Like what?" she snapped.
The lamia bit his lip, some of his languid poise melting away. The ocean eyes were incredibly gentle, as only Riose could be. "Like...you have a thing about men in black T-shirts. And you have a scar on the back of your knee. And...um..."
He stuttered into silence. Cool, possessed Riose silenced?
"Phi," murmured Celia, raising one finger warningly, "stop looking at Riose like you're thinking seriously about giving him a knuckle sandwich. He's just telling you how it is."
She tried to tone it down. Unfortunately, the twisting viper of rage inside her was drooling venom. "Do carry on," she said flatly.
"Don says..." Very carefully, Riose moved his knees up to shield his chest and other more vulnerable areas. "You're a good lay."
Bastard. Treacherous, lying bastard.
"Of course I am," she said through gritted teeth, "but I can assure you that Don Ivan doesn't know that."
"I'd like to second that statement," Finn put in. "But I can't, because my lovely Delphine won't let me touch her sacred person. Phi, Phi, all this trouble could have been avoided if you'd just let me hopelessly slaver and worship you."
"Is now really the time?" Celia rapped Finn's knee with a bar of chocolate.
He shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the atmosphere."
"I like it dark," growled Phi. "It'll hide the horrible way I'm going to mutilate Don when I next see him. I'm going to make him into mincemeat, and then I'm going to mix him up with garlic and tomatoes and make puttanesca sauce from him."
All four of her childhood friends looked at her, human and witch and vampire and shapeshifter. Celia snorted with laughter, and that set the lot of them off.
"I'll provide the spaghetti," volunteered Finn between sniggers.
"I'm not laughing," she announced ominously.
Celia composed herself first, even if her lips still quirked at the corners. "Oh Phi, we didn't believe the rumours, and no one else will. You're overreacting."
"I'm not," she snapped. "I'm not Don's and I won't ever be!"
"You're wrong there, I'm afraid," said a butter-smooth voice behind her, and Phi froze.
Just what she needed to complete the day. Poseidon Ivan himself.
That certainly stopped the laughter, she noted grimly as she turned to face him. She swallowed back her fear, as she always did, hiding it under brashness and sharp words.
He was stood right in front of the noonday sun, so it blasted out around him like a cloak of fire. It turned his pale hair to a rich, melting gold that clung to his heart-shaped face, and bordered the lagoon-blue eyes with careful art.
He had the soft bronze skin of a Mediterranean, turning to a dark gold where his nose and cheekbones had been grazed by sunlight. And he was tall; Phi knew from weary experience that he had to bend down to kiss her, just as she had to reach up to give him a hefty smack on the jaw. Only his hands gave an indication of what he was; there was frail webbing a little too high on his fingers, and he walked like someone used to shifting ground.
"It's all been agreed, Phi. The contracts are signed, and the whole pod knows. We will be married."
"Over my dead body!"
He tapped his thigh thoughtfully. "Hopefully not. Why are you so against this, Phi? I'll be good to you, you know. I have been good to you."
He spoke like he believed it, as if the incident in their childhood had never happened. She knew better than to mention it; she had paid for it last time.
"Because you're arrogant, and annoying, and I don't love you?" she suggested shortly.
He shrugged. His voice was warm as steam rising. "You'll learn to."
Her friends, she noticed, were pretending they couldn't hear any of this. "No, I won't, Don. I'm not keeping a contract I wasn't consulted about."
His smile flashed like a flying fish breaking the surface. "It wasn't just a contract, Phi. You won't be breaking this one - and I won't be breaking it either."
"I will," she threw back, her fists clenched and tight on the ground. "It's been done before - my mother broke contract with your father."
"Ah, yes. So she did." He gazed up at the sky, and she thought maybe a frown grazed his features. "That did occur to our parents, you know. Rebellion is a bit of a trait in your mother's line and well...neither of us are quite the saintly paragons they were hoping for. No one wanted another farce. So..."
His head lowered in one graceful roll, and his face was blank as an eggshell. Beautiful; oh yes, but smooth and almost discordant.
"They swore in blood, Phi," he told her, not a flicker betraying what he thought. "So you see, if you break this oath, your parents die."
No...
"It's true," he said, and shrugged, a little wry smile tipping up his mouth. "One way or another, we will be married. Get used to it."
They couldn't have, her mind chattered. They wouldn't have been so stupid. Dad knows I don't like him.
But he wants what's best for the pod. And Mom...Mom's always wanted me to marry Don. They probably told themselves they were doing me a favour. I'm sure they made some pointless justification before they took my life away from me.
They took away my life.
She never even noticed Don was gone. She didn't notice anything, except that she was getting up and people's voices were clanging in her head like plates smashing. Brushing past the hands that reached for her with comfort, blind to everything except this horrible truth, she ran away.
They had chained her to him, and yet she'd never felt more alone.
And I'd sell my soul to any wide-eyed devil.
X - X - X - X - X
Thanks for reading! I'd love, love, love to hear what you think!