by S. E. Smith
An explosive curse slipped from his lips when his arms went right through her body. He stumbled forward a couple of steps. Before he could catch his balance, a well-placed foot against his ass sent him sprawling in an inelegant heap inside the gazebo, and though he tried to roll to his feet, her boot caught him in his side with her full strength behind it. He grunted at the familiar pain, and for a sickening moment he flashed back to how he’d felt under his old man’s boot. Ross twisted onto his back, his face a dark thundercloud, and glared up at her. This bitch had no idea the hornet’s nest she’d just made angry.
“Tell me where Magna is and how to kill the black shadow,” she demanded.
“Forget it, Lady. You can find your answers from somebody else,” he snarled.
She hissed with fury at his angry retort. Ross reached for her ankle when she started to move again. He muttered a low curse when his hand passed right through her. He gritted his teeth in frustration when she reappeared just out of reach.
Alright, so the direct approach wasn’t gonna work. How did a guy protect himself from someone who could disappear? His eyes swept over the floor. The only thing within reach besides leaves were a few sticks.
His fingers wrapped around the largest one. He wouldn’t hit a woman, but he wasn’t opposed to using the stick to keep a bit of distance between them if necessary – though he wasn’t sure that it would work. He rolled to his feet, holding the short, fat piece of wood in his hand. He had barely turned to face her when her fist suddenly connected with his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He parted his lips and he took a wheezing breath.
So much for that idea, he thought as the branch fell from his limp fingers. He pressed his hand to his stomach. Damn, but for someone so small she sure know how to fight dirty and she sure as hell knows how to throw a powerful punch.
He barely lifted his other hand in time to catch the fist that was aimed at his nose again. Her eyes flared with emotion and he saw a glimpse of fear flash through them when he wrapped his hand tightly around hers. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered the fact that he had left himself wide open for the knee that connected with his groin.
He blanched when unimaginable pain flooded him. He released her hand and staggered back several steps before sinking to his knees on the ground. His mouth opened and closed like a fish on land.
“Damn it all to hell. That was dirty,” he groaned out between clenched teeth and closed his eyes. He clumsily leaned back against the side of the gazebo holding his affected area in his hands. He gritted his teeth and kept his eyes closed as pain pulsed through his body. Part of him wished that she would just get it over and done with. At least if she killed him the pain would be gone. A shudder ran through him as the throbbing slowly began to ebb.
“Don’t touch me or – or I’ll hurt you even worse,” she warned.
He cracked one of his eyes open before he opened the other. She was standing several feet from him with her arms up and her fists clenched and ready. If he wasn’t in so much pain, he might have actually laughed when he saw that she suddenly bit her lip and looked down at him with wary uncertainty.
“I can assure you that this is about as much pain as I ever want to feel.” He released a shuddering breath and shook his head. “You know, I’ve only had this happen to me once before. I thought Carly was bad when she accidentally nailed me, but this – this is way worse. Unless you plan on killing me and putting me out of my misery, I’d just as soon call this as bad enough,” he informed her in a strained voice laced with residual pain.
“Wait – are you saying you know Carly Tate?” she hesitantly asked.
4
Ross closed his eyes again and leaned back against the pillar. His balls still hurt, along with a few other parts of his anatomy, but he was trying to relax. He had closed his eyes again mainly because he didn’t want to see if she would follow through on his invitation to kill him. He wondered if dying would reset this whole adventure and cause him to wake up back on his boat.
He finally forced one eye open, then the other one when he heard her hesitant question. Dark spots still danced before his eyes. Did he know Carly Tate? This woman obviously did; he hadn’t mentioned Carly’s last name.
He took a slow, shallow breath – breathing through his nose and releasing through his mouth as he tried to push the pain away. There was no way in hell he was ever getting close to that one-woman wrecking crew again if he could help it. He stared back at her with a wary expression.
“If we’re talking about the same Carly Tate from Yachats, Oregon, then yeah, I know her,” he muttered.
She was silent a moment before she spoke again. “You are not much of a fighter. I’d have thought the Sea Witch’s warriors would be better – if I’m right and she did send you,” the woman observed with an piqued sniff.
“She didn’t send me! Okay, well, maybe technically she did, but that doesn’t mean that I’m one of her warriors. I am definitely not. I have only met her a couple of times, but she didn’t seem like an evil overlord to me. Unlike you, she also didn’t try to beat the shit out of me for no reason,” he pointed out in a dry tone.
“The Sea Witch is evil. She is the one who turned me to stone!” she snapped.
“Yeah, well, the Sea Witch I met seemed like she just wanted to be left in peace,” Ross said, slowly releasing his injured groin so that he could gingerly rise to his feet.
“Then why did she send you? She sent you to me, and a friend of Magna’s is an enemy of mine,” Gem accused with a pointed glare.
“I don’t know! Maybe she didn’t even mean to. She gave me a magic shell. I was holding it when I was pulled overboard. That doesn’t seem like the best way to send in enemy troops. That just sounds like a fucking joke, and a bad one at that!” he retorted.
“A shell? Why would she give you a magic shell? Are you from the same Isle as Carly? I’ve only seen a couple of your kind here,” she said.
She raised her hands in a braced defensive motion when he moved. Ross lifted one of his hands, palm out, and gingerly stepped away from her, imagining lightning or some shit about to shoot out of her palms. He decided keeping more than a little bit of distance between them would be a good idea.
“My kind? Listen, lady, I’m not from any Isle. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I’m just a fisherman from Yachats, Oregon. I was on my boat, minding my own damn business, when I got pulled overboard and ended up out there.” He pointed to the water far below. “I’m lucky I didn’t drown! I swam ashore, climbed way more steps than I wanted to, and found you all hard and tragic looking. I touched you – which, let me tell you, was a huge mistake that I’m currently regretting – you came to life, and since that moment, my nose has been almost broken, my ass was kicked, and my nuts were kneed so hard I’ll be lucky if I ever have any kids – not that I want any – but still, I’d like to be the one to make that decision. So in case you can’t tell, I’m having a really piss-poor day, and I’d rather be back in Yachats where at least I can be miserable in a place where I DAMN WELL KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!” he finished, his voice getting louder with each word.
He didn’t care that he was shouting by the time he finished his long-winded rant. He was so fucking thirsty, tired, hungry, hurting, and he badly wanted a cigarette and a beer to rustle up some small bit of happiness in his miserable fucking life. He turned his back to her, scooped up his jacket and sweater, and started back down the path toward the beach. He’d actually found something worse than those god-damn stairs, and if he never saw her beautiful face again, it’d still be too soon.
Gem watched the man who had freed her from her stone prison walk away. Guilt surged through her. Why had she attacked him without giving him the chance to explain himself? She’d felt so much danger buzzing against her skin, but unless appearances were very deceiving, which they absolutely could be, that man was more lost and confused than she was.
Gem warily looked around the gazebo. Now that she wasn’t fighting for
her life, she noticed that something was dangerously wrong with the Isle. She sensed it in the magic around her, felt an impending doom vibrating in her bones – and she was alone, terrifyingly and ominously alone on her Isle. The clearing was as silent as the grave.
Gem straightened her shoulders and followed the man Magna had sent to her. There was still no reason to trust him – except for the fact that he didn’t appear to be evil – but he was a necessary part of solving the problem at hand, she could feel it. Perhaps he was a clue or even an unwitting ally if she managed to stay one step ahead. If anything, he reminded her a little of Ashure Waves, the Pirate King, except that Ashure knew how to fight.
“Where are you going?” she called out when he kept walking away from her without looking back.
“Down to the beach,” he replied in a curt tone.
She frowned. “But… why?” she asked, hurrying to catch up with him.
He stopped suddenly and turned, then wrapped his hands around her arms to prevent her from running into him. A flicker of surprise crossed his face when his hands didn’t go through her, his scowl of irritation turning to a frown of confusion as he blinked down at her.
Wavy strands of different colors linked them together. The silvery-blue, smoky threads followed him when he pulled his hands away from her.
“What is happening now? Every time I touch you I get a shock and now there’s a rainbow-colored light show going on. I feel like I’m tripping on some kind of weird, hallucinogenic drug! So for the last fucking time, what – the – fuck – is – going – on?” he asked grimly.
Gem pursed her lips together and looked away from the colors. Instead, she reached out and grabbed his arm when he tried to wave the colorful strands away.
“You can’t wave them away,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Obviously. I swear everything is just getting weirder and weirder,” he muttered.
“You can’t escape what is happening,” she stated in a tense tone.
He raised his eyebrow. “Listen, sweetheart, if you’re not going to explain, fine. I don’t care what’s happening. I’m fed up! It isn’t my monkey. It isn’t my circus. I will tell you what I’m going to do, though. I’m going to go park my ass on the beach and hope that a genie in a bottle washes up so I can order a case of beer, a big-ass steak, and a comfy chair with a nice little umbrella while I wait to wake up from this nightmare,” he replied, tugging his arm free.
She sighed. “Perhaps we should begin again. My name is Gem Aurora LaBreeze. You may call me Gem,” she said, stepping around him to block his exit.
He shot her a suspicious glare and started to push her aside. He paused, and his frown deepened when the smoky threads still clinging to his arm moved over his dragon tattoo, outlining the shape.
“Okay – Gem. I’d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but I’d be lying, so I won’t. What I would like to know is if this smoky stuff is going to make my arm fall off,” he warily responded.
“No, your arm will not fall off. You haven’t told me your name,” she reminded him.
He looked back at her with a distracted frown. “It’s Ross – Ross Galloway,” he answered.
He looked back down at his arm. Gem smirked when she heard him release a long breath of relief after he noticed that the colorful threads had disappeared and his arm looked normal again. She knew that the threads were just the first of many issues that they would have to eventually deal with – just not right now. She wasn’t ready to deal with the meaning of the threads just yet.
At the moment, she wanted to focus on convincing him that he was now going to be a part of her quest whether it was his monkey/circus or not – whatever that meant! The only monkeys that she knew about were Nali’s sea monkeys, and they were horrid little beasts. She impatiently waited for him to finish examining his arm.
“I need your help,” Gem blurted out when he remained silent.
He looked up to meet her eyes and she watched several expressions cross his face before he settled on wariness. He shook his head, and she pursed her lips, flashing him an irritated look. He was not going to make this easy for her.
Of course, she probably would have been a touch wary if their roles were reversed. Still, considering that Magna was the last person she’d seen before she’d been turned to stone, she felt she had a right to be a little on the defensive side.
She folded her arms across her chest when Ross opened and closed his mouth before he actually responded.
“My help?” He outright laughed. “Lady – Gem – in case you missed it, you just kicked my ass and pushed my nuts up into my throat. I don’t think you need any of my help,” he said as he turned away from her.
Gem grabbed his arm and turned him to face her again. “The fact that I pushed your nuts up into your throat is not the point. I need your help, and you are going to give it to me,” she firmly stated.
Ross’s eyes blazed but he pressed his lips into a thin line. Gem was pretty sure he had been about to say some very disparaging words, but he was holding himself back. That was good. He might be resistant to her orders, but he was afraid of her, and that would work in her favor.
“Well,” Ross finally said, his eyes boring into hers. “If you’re gonna twist my arm, I don’t have much choice, do I? You gonna tell me why you need me?” he growled.
She took a deep breath as she decided how to phrase this. “I would if I could, but something tells me that you must help me, and since I feel that way, you will,” Gem insisted.
He gave her an incredulous look. “Something tells you, huh? Well, you know what? Something is telling me that I need to hike my hairy, white ass back down to the beach and wait for my shell to appear or some other random magical shit to happen,” Ross stated caustically with a wave of his hand. He stepped around her and started walking toward the staircase again. “Welcome back to the land of the living, lady. I hope your next adventure works out better than your last one,” he added with a sharp salute.
Fury and desperation flared inside Gem. She needed his help. The colors – she shook her head. She refused to think about the colors that now bound them together. She would deal with the ramifications later.
Frustrated, she dissolved and swept through him before materializing again. She splayed her hand on the center of his chest, forcing him to stop. Her lavender eyes glowed with determination as she stepped closer to him.
“I need your help, and you are the only one here who can assist me,” she repeated through clenched teeth.
He reached up and removed her hand. Folding his arms across his chest, he glared down at her. She curled her fingers into a fist in an effort to keep from doing something drastic – like freezing his feet to the ground.
“And if I don’t, what are you going to do – kick my ass again?” he asked softly, his intensity making her breath hitch in her throat.
“If you don’t, then we are all going to die.” She swallowed, feeling smothered by the weight of this responsibility. “The Isle is sinking and there are only two people who can stop it from happening. We have to find them before the Isle crashes into the ocean and disappears forever,” she quietly replied.
A skeptical expression swept over his face, and he dropped his arms to his side. “Okay… this sounds like crazy bullshit, but I’m listening. Tell me more,” he demanded.
She raised her hands to her sides, her palms facing downward. “I can feel the disturbance in the Isle. If we don’t either renew the spell or undo the one that was created, the Isle will crash into the sea. Not only will our Isle be destroyed, but possibly all the other Isles as well when a mass this large hits the ocean and causes a tsunami in all directions. Only my mother and father have the strength and knowledge to control something this complex,” she explained.
“Your parents?” he inquired, surprised.
“Yes, my parents. They are the rulers of the Isle of the Elementals and can control all of the elements. When I left them—” her voice faded as she t
hought of the last time she had seen her parents. She took a deep breath before she continued, “—when I left them, they were in the palace maze. ”
He stared at her in silence for several seconds. She curled her fingers into tight fists when she saw that he still didn’t believe her. The longer he was silent, the more desperate she became. She was just about to ask him if he understood what she was saying when he spoke.
“Never had a girl want me to meet her parents before,” he joked half-heartedly. He took a breath, then another. “I don’t suppose it’s as simple as finding our way through this palace maze? They’ve been turned to stone too, haven’t they?” he muttered, his eyes narrowed to slits as he tried to deal with this latest news on top of a helluva lot of other shocking developments.
When she hesitantly bit her lip and said “Something like that,” he paused, then responded with a heartfelt sigh of resignation.
“Fine. You think you need a useless sidekick? I’ve got your back. But just so you know, Princess, I’m no hero. I’ll get you to your palace only because it appears that is the only way I’m going to be able to get off this floating rock in one piece. When this is done, you, your dad, or the tooth fairy are going to send me back home. Deal?”
Gem was silent for a moment before she slowly nodded. “Yes, when this is over, I will ask my father to find a way to send you back to your world, Ross Galloway,” she somberly agreed.
5
Half an hour later, Ross sat on the top step of the gazebo and watched with a disgruntled expression as Gem studied each stone on the path and in the floor of the gazebo. After they’d come to their tentative agreement to help each other, she’d informed him that she needed to know more about what had happened after she was turned to stone, and the runes or whatever were going to tell her. Apparently magic messages were relayed through stones here, and she was expecting mail from her parents.