by S. K Munt
If he was still there, of course.
Tristan walked for two blocks, keeping his head low, until he spotted exactly what he needed parked up the side alley of a church in a quiet suburb. The blue mountain bike was new and locked to a down pipe, but he only had to punch the cheap combination lock once before he shattered the mechanism. He worked quickly and silently, too haunted by the grave mistakes he’d made earlier to risk messing up again. Saying a quick prayer to whichever god guarded that particular church, Tristan lifted his leg over the bike and shot off in the direction of Middlegate Road.
At first, the wind had felt cool against his face, and the the soft and threadbare cotton of the surfer’s t-shirt was a welcome change from days of being cold and wet and naked. But then his legs started to tire after a kilometer from the unfamiliar exercise, the air felt dry and hot. He instantly wanted to throw the bike in the bushes and curl up somewhere to sleep, but that wasn’t an option. He knew he didn’t have long to put some distance between himself, the church where he’d taken the bike, the esplanade where he’d stolen the clothes, and the beach where he’d alarmed the tourists before the cops came looking for him. Norfolk was a closely-knit island, and his petty theft would be treated like a major crime in such a place.
But if the cops came for him, they’d better come with two sets of cuffs. Because as tired as he was, he knew that the moment his hands were wrapped around Ardhi’s neck, he wouldn’t be going anywhere without him-not even jail.
⁓
Ivyanne was in heaven. She lay in Lincoln’s arms as his warm lips lazily worked over hers, her head sinking into the soft pillow on her bed, the weight of his torso pinning her down on the soft albeit rumpled bedspread. Time had no meaning, thoughts had no substance.
Lincoln’s lips left hers, his nose nuzzling the tip of hers. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘Your lips are so red and puffy right now from mine. Do you know how high that makes me feel?’
Ivyanne rubbed her lips together realizing that they were actually somewhat numb. ‘High?’ she echoed.
‘You don’t know that expression?’
Ivyanne shook her head. ‘Human?’
Lincoln nodded. ‘Kind of like...floating. But I think it comes from the feeling of being stoned...all numb and dumb and giggly…’
‘Stoned?’ Ivyanne needed to clarify that. ‘As in, drugs?’
Lincoln chuckled. ‘So I guess you’ve never smoked pot?’
Ivyanne rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah sure. Right after I made a porno and blogged about it. Why, have you?’
Lincoln wrinkled his nose. ‘If I had-I’m certainly not going to tell you after that reaction!’ He bent his elbow and rested his face on his palm, gazing down at her. ‘God Ivyanne...were you ever a teenager?’
Ivyanne reached up and touched his lips. ‘Yes. With you. In fact, I feel like one right now.’
Lincoln kissed her fingertips. ‘You know what I mean. I’m getting all giddy here lying on your bed and thinking about being fourteen, when I’d lie on my bed and picture this moment.’ He slipped his hand beneath her soft pink t-shirt and caressed her stomach softly. ‘I always envisioned you in some ghastly pink bedroom with boy band posters on the wall and homework assignments spread everywhere...in a school uniform with knee socks….’ he grinned wickedly down at her legs as though picturing it, ‘which I’d keep on of course-’
Ivyanne laughed. ‘You better make your point. I see that hot and bothered look in your eye.’
Lincoln nodded. ‘True. Anyway my point is-the whole time, your life was nothing like the lives of the other girls I knew, was it? I mean, did you even go to school? Do any of you?’
Ivyanne nodded. ‘Most mers live in the same place year long like humans. They pick a nice coastal area, enroll their kids in school...and the majority even go on to university afterwards-provided it’s somewhere near the water.’ She threaded her fingers through his short dark hair which she loved to feel against her skin. ‘But being royalty, I travelled and attended all over the world. My first four years of education were in France, then we moved to Hawaii for awhile, and lived fairly far out from a school district. Mum and dad built a little native school there, and I had a governess until it was up and running. I did one year there, but I was too advanced so mum and dad put me in a private girls’ college on Oahu for the next year. I probably would have stayed there, but dad got this opportunity to film a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef so we moved to Australia-that was the first year we came here for the summer, and I met you.’
Lincoln’s eyes widened. ‘The accent!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh my god, I’d almost forgotten-Ivanna had an accent.’
‘Yes I did, a slight one,’ Ivyanne said. ‘Anyway after that summer, they tried to enroll me in a few regular high schools but I was too advanced by then, so they pulled me out-basically to sit on rocks and comb my hair and wait for the handsome prince that needed rescuing.’
‘Now there’s a pretty picture,’ his fingers stretched up, stroking her top-most ribs, grazing the underside of her bra.‘It sucks that you missed out on things like prom and recess and cliques though…’
Ivyanne nodded, her eyelids fluttering shut briefly at his heavenly touch. ‘It does. And because that happens to a lot of us, one of my cousins is actually trying to organize a private school in this area somewhere-a mer exclusive college, you may say. Co-ed, so we get all of the benefits of education and experience without having to hide our true selves.’
‘That sounds like a great idea,’ Lincoln said, as one of his fingertips slid into the valley between her breasts from beneath. His lips parted on an exhale and stayed apart so that he barely moved them when he said: ‘I’m surprised there isn’t one already.’
Ivyanne moaned as his finger curled around the underwire between her breasts and tugged ever so gently, jostling her. ‘Opening a school is difficult-’ god she sounded overcome! ‘..especially an upmarket one…. trying to keep the-uh-humans out is problematic and she’s come across a lot of red t-’
Lincoln swept his mouth cross hers. Ivyanne sighed and held her hand against his chest, pushing him back. She was too turned on to risk being kissed and fondled in unison. ‘What was that for?’
‘For all of the kisses you missed in high school.’ Lincoln smiled down at her. ‘Was I the only guy you ever made out with back then?’
Ivyanne smiled. ‘You didn’t realize that until now?’
Lincoln moaned and kissed her again, only this time, there was nothing gentle about it.
⁓
When Tristan got to the secluded house which was owned by the Kayu-Api’s, he wasn’t surprised to see that it was only a small cottage. Ardhi’s family seemed to favor the simple things, even though they were far from poor.
He abandoned the bike in some scrub near the foot of the driveway, then made his way up to the house along the tree line, avoiding the large open expanse of grass surrounding the gravel drive. The bushes tore at his skin, but he couldn’t afford to be spotted before he got a good look at who was inside. Was Ardhi there? Or Adele? Both? Neither? He had no idea.
When he got close to the porch, he was astounded to see that the front door was wide open. Throwing caution to the wind, he ran to the side of the house, crossing the twenty meters in only a few strides, before flattening himself against the wall under a window. Inside, he could hear music blaring, but it had a tinny quality, and he guessed that it was coming from a television or small radio, rather than a stereo system. He recognized the pop song, and frowned, knowing that Ardhi wouldn’t be playing that kind of song-he was too old fashioned to rock MTV. Tristan doubted that Ardhi had willfully listened to anything other than tribal drums in his whole, bland life.
Suddenly, the sound of running water from somewhere towards the back of the house caught his attention. With a smile, Tristan moved quickly, creeping across the porch and crossing the threshold to the front door, praying that the floorboards under his feet wouldn’t squeak, and that he wasn’
t about to get arrested for prowling around a house with a stranger in it.
There were only a few bedrooms in the place, and he followed the sound of the shower all the way to the end of the hall, quickly glancing into each shadowy room he passed to confirm that they were deserted. When he reached the bathroom, he held his ear up against it, heart racing. He heard a female voice loudly singing a different song to the one on the radio and he smiled, instantly recognizing Adele’s tone, despite the fact that it was more resonant than it had been before, thanks, of course, to the mermaid makeover he could now confirm. He melted into the nearest bedroom, noticing all at once that it was the largest, and that the double bed inside was the only one in the house that was unmade. A brief scan provided further proof that Adele was squatting there-a pair of platform Lou Buiton heels that only a recently-turned mermaid would deign with. He dropped his nose to the sheet and sniffed it tentatively, making a face when the potent stench of Chanel invaded his nostrils. Yep, a spoiled girl had been sleeping there-alone.
Tristan straightened, wondering what he was supposed to do now. He’d hoped to catch Ardhi unawares and clock him, but there was no trace of Ardhi in the dwelling-which meant he was somewhere else, and most likely that somewhere else was the last place Tristan wanted him to be.
Suddenly, the shower was silenced and Tristan cursed under his breath, vaulting towards the bedroom door, sliding into the narrow gap behind it. He’d only just made it when he heard the bathroom door screech open, and he froze, trying not to even breathe, which ironically, was hard for mermaids out of the water.
Adele strode by seconds later, a threadbare blue towel wrapped around her torso as she swung another one.
‘These boots were made for walkin’....that’s just what they’ll do...One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you….’ she sang, surprising Tristan with the faint country twang in her voice. She stopped in the centre of the room and bent over, her back to him, her wet hair dripping on the timber floor as she began to wrap a second towel around her head, turban style. ‘Dang I sound awesome now!’ she giggled.
The sound of her laughter pissed Tristan off. Before he knew what he was doing, he slammed the bedroom door shut, stepping up to her as he did so, fixing his features in the deadliest expression he had.
‘Should have known that becoming mer would have made you twice as conceited as you were before,’ he rasped.
Adele spun around, the towel flying off her head, her wet hair swinging, flicking droplets of water onto his face. There were no words to describe the look of utter shock on her pretty face as she recognized him.
‘Tristan?!’ she gasped, hands clutching at the towel around her breasts. ‘But we killed you!’
That was all of the admission he needed. ‘Not quite!’ he barked, advancing on her, giving her a shove. ‘Sorry to ruin whatever it is you and Ardhi are plotting, you crazy bitch! But it ends now!’
To his amazement, Adele’s blue eyes filled with tears. She took a step towards him, holding her hands up. ‘Tristan-please-you have to hear me out-’
Tristan wasn’t in the mood to hear anything she had to say. For the first time in his life he raised his fist to a woman-and knocked her out cold.
⁓
One moment, Ivyanne had been laying amongst the coral, demonstrating her ability to camouflage herself amongst the shells and seagrass with a serene and sparkling smile, and the next, she was a blur of periwinkle and gold shooting around the submerged oyster rock behind him, disappearing from view and leaving Lincoln frozen and blinking after her.
Was was that? He thought, taking off after her in a daze, glancing around nervously for sharks. He hated it when Ivyanne left him alone in open water-and it was eerie when she did it without comment first.
In order to show him a few tricks, mainly concerning camouflage, and how to reverse coral bleaching with his own energy on his RDO, Ivyanne had taken Lincoln an hour north of Bracken, to a environmentally protected zone she’d helped Michael Donnelly develop a few years before. It was a small cluster reef near a very small island-Griffin Island, and the water was thick with the bounty of her efforts-more alive than any he’d ever encountered. He was having a wonderful time with her.
But Lincoln knew his day was about to take a turn for the weird the moment he saw Ivyanne wrap her delicate fingers around the base of a reef anchor embedded in the sea floor, and maneuver it out of the coral gingerly. Her actions were gentle and deliberate-a stark contrast to the fearsome expression on her beautiful face.
‘What are you doing?’ It was the first time Lincoln had ever spoken underwater, and he was surprised by how normal it sounded. No oxygen bubbled out of his mouth as it would have when he was a human.
Ivyanne clasped the anchor with one hand and hitched the slackened length of chain with the other, pulling it tight. She lifted her narrowed eyes to the surface some twenty feet above, lips twisted in a sneer. ‘They’re not allowed to fish here.’ She said. ‘And I’m going to make sure they don’t try it again.’
Lincoln followed her gaze up the anchor chain to where it became rope, slicing through the teardrop clear water from above and connected to the water-magnified hull of a white fishing boat.
‘Why?’
‘It’s a green zone. Off limits-to everyone and for good reason.’
‘Is it that big a deal?’ He asked, gesturing around him. The water was a pale shade of turquoise within the depths, and it was writhing with colors thanks to the multitude of fish milling about them.‘It’s not like we’re short of them or anything...’
Ivyanne rolled her green eyes. ‘That’s the point Lincoln-that’s what a green zone is for-to make sure there are plenty.’ She watched a be-speckled blue and burnt orange coral trout whip by, her brow furrowed with concern while she tracked its course. ‘The fish here aren’t used to being hunted, like those out in the sport areas. They’re too naïve, too easily caught. If these idiots-’ She snapped her eyes back up the surface above, ‘take advantage, there will be nothing left.’
Lincoln tried to look supportive, even though he still didn’t really understand. He’d gone from having zero interest in politics, to being the subject of a monarchy who took things that Lincoln had never even thought about very seriously.
But his life was different now, and it had the potential to be an incredible one. So if green zone fishing was a problem for her, he’d make it a problem for him. It was that simple.
‘So, you’re going to set them adrift?’
Ivyanne returned his smile, a wicked gleam in her eye. ‘Oh… I think we can do a little better than that. Hold this-don’t let it go loose or they might pull it up to cast it again.’ She thrust the anchor chain into his hands and then took the spokes of the anchor in her own. Her body went taut, her tail curled up until her fluke was touching her lower back, and then suddenly, the steel gave way, bending in the opposite direction with relative ease. After she’d done the first two, she alternated her grip and did the second, briefly tilting her elbow to swipe the tail end of her long, floating blonde braid out of her eyes.
‘I’ll get it.’ Lincoln reached out and caught her hair under the guise of assisting. Really, he’d take any opportunity to touch her-even if it was just her hair. But to his horror, Ivyanne flinched from his touch.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, retracting his hand, stung by the rejection. ‘My bad.’
‘No. It’s not you...it felt good, Link. I wasn’t expecting...I mean, you know that I-’ Ivyanne glanced down at her hands, to the anchor she’d mangled. Instead of being shaped like a waterfall now, it looked more like a claw.
That’s when Lincoln realized that this was more than a revenge urge, but an outlet for her frustration. ‘It’s okay.’ He assured her. ‘I won’t take it personally.’
‘I’m sorry. I just can’t talk about it.’ She shook herself off. ‘Look, I better do this, before they move on.’ Her voice was strained.‘Follow me-and don’t let it loose, okay? They can’t know
anything is going on while we’re this close.’
Lincoln nodded, glancing down at the rusting chain in his hands, noting the metallic scent was pungent, even in the water.
Ivyanne flicked her lavender-blue tail gently, and she took off at a graceful speed. Lincoln followed suit, adjusting his position so that he was coming up under the shadow of the boat, as she was. As he ascended, his skin breaking out in gooseflesh from paranoia, he took note of the four drop lines in the water around him. They were fishing all right. And it looked like they were about to regret it.
Ivyanne was well ahead of him after a few seconds and so he trailed after her wake, his heart rate beginning to pick up pace as his new mer senses smelled bloodlust in the water. Not from a shark, but the princess. How far would she take this? He had visions of her pulling on a fishing line and yanking an unsuspecting human into the water to meet his death. As someone who had been both human, and ignorant of fishing laws just a few weeks before, the situation made him incredibly uncomfortable.
Once only a few meters of water separated them from the white hull, which was marred by scrape marks, Ivyanne glanced back at him and held up her free hand, motioning for him to wait. And so he did, pulling on the chain as tightly as possible, watching her,and the water near the surface warily. It was harder to hold back the slack in the chain now and so he added his other hand, pulling down with some of his body weight. It wasn’t nearly enough to keep the boat steady, but if they noticed movement and tugged, he’d be able to resist it enough to fool them into thinking they were still anchored. He smiled, feeling his new strength course through his arms. A moon before, pulling on a rope would have grazed his palms and made them ache. Now it felt like nothing.