An Elemental Tail

by Shona Husk

  “What is the model’s name?”

  “Nik.”

  The dean raised his eyebrows, and Isla shrank to the size of a minnow. She didn’t know Nik’s last name, and she was sure the dean knew there was something going on. What kind of a woman slept with a man without knowing his surname? The kind of woman who didn’t want anything permanent.

  “Just Nik,” she said with as much dignity as she could find. This was the twenty-first century. If she wanted to sleep with the class model and not know his full name, she could. In the back of her mind she heard her mother laughing at her fall from grace.

  The dean nodded. “Send Nik in so I can get his statement.”

  ****

  Something was wrong. Her room was as she’d left it before darting off to work for the evening, only emptier. Like it had stopped breathing in her absence and only a shell remained. Dread expanded in her stomach. Her satchel lay on the floor, empty.

  “No.” Isla dropped to her knees, fighting the urge to be sick. Her sketchbooks were gone. The loss of both would damage her degree, but the loss of the leather-bound book cut her heart. It beat with no purpose; the blood never reached her muscles. She leaned against the desk to stay upright.

  How could they be gone? They were worthless to anyone but her. Her stomach clenched again. What else was missing?

  Isla’s gaze skimmed her few CDs and her laptop on the desk. Nothing else had been disturbed. The bookcase hadn’t been touched—all her drawers were closed, her valuables unmoved.

  The only thing missing were her drawings…drawings of Nik.

  What a fool.

  She barely knew the man and she’d invited him into her home, her room, her life. She closed her eyes and fought off the rising nausea. It was only a book. Sarah had given her many books. She bit her lip to keep it from shaking and to stop herself from crying. Why would a drifter take sketches over easily re-saleable items?

  Sharp-edged cold replaced the initial upset. This crime was specific. The thief knew exactly what he was looking for. Isla opened her eyes and looked around her room again. Nik wouldn’t steal her drawings.

  She picked up her empty satchel and placed the scattered pencils back into the pocket, then hung the bag over the back of the chair. It was her proof of attendance that had been stolen, and only one person stood to gain from the theft.

  Zachary Gardner.

  ****

  Jealousy and anger tore through Nik’s sleep like a shark shredding meat, snatching and swallowing every chunk whole. Nik gripped the sides of his bed, crippled by the venom of the emotions. Not even Greta had been this bitter, and he’d lived with her poisonous grip on his tail for twenty years until she’d taken a musket ball in the back. These feelings didn’t belong to Isla. They clung to skin like oil and coated him in raw hatred.

  He’d tasted these toxic emotions before, when Gardner had touched his tail in Isla’s class. Now Gardner was running his greedy hands over every page. He had to get the book back for Isla, and for himself.

  Nik rolled out of bed, pushing down the slick slime settling in his stomach. He tossed on some clothes and left his hotel. Drizzle dampened his shirt. He ignored it, moving quickly down the street. This time of night, most people had gone home. Traffic moved past, unhindered by daytime congestion. He hailed a passing cab and gave an address about fifteen minutes away.

  He’d made it his business to know where Gardner lived when he’d promised to help Isla. He wasn’t as trusting as she was. While he believed the dean wanted to help and truth would prevail, he also believed Gardner would stop at nothing to take Isla down. Especially now that she’d started an investigation that would ruin his teaching career.

  Nik gazed out the taxi’s window; his breath fogged the glass as he tried to stay calm on the backseat. The streets gleamed in the rain, slick and black as the cabbie wove through the night. After five minutes he gave up trying to be relaxed. He drummed his fingers against his thigh as he tried not to think about his tail in Gardner’s hands and failed. Repulsion caressed his skin every time Gardner pawed at the pages of the book.

  His skin pulled tight. Then burning ripped down his back. A strip of skin was torn from his body. He gasped, his back arching as raw flesh was left exposed to the air. He held in the scream that lodged in his throat like a burr. The bastard was ripping out pages.

  The cabbie looked back, the whites of his eyes too visible in the rear view mirror.

  “Keep driving. I’m fine,” Nik said through gritted teeth. Anger and adrenaline kept him awake when pain should’ve offered unconscious oblivion. Warmth blossomed on his back as blood seeped into his black shirt.

  The cab ride was taking too long. He’d never thought he’d be destroyed by someone pulling apart the book. Would he die or just be maimed? How much skin could he live without?

  As the next strip of flesh was pulled from his side, he clamped his jaw closed. His body jerked. He was being flayed with his own skin. The metallic scent of his blood hung in the air and his breath came in short pants. Each one pulled the open wounds on his back.

  The taxi stopped. Nik waited a moment, wanting to be sure Gardner was home. His link to his tail reverberated in a desperate cry for help. His instinct hadn’t failed him. He thrust a handful of bills at the driver and got out. His shirt clung to his back, glued to his body by blood. Rain poured over him, washing but not healing his wounds.

  He didn’t wait for the cab to pull away. He took out his cell phone and called 9-1-1 as he walked up to the front door. If Gardner tore the book to pieces and he died, he wanted the police to be there to witness the destruction of evidence. Nik gave the address and hung up. He tried the door handle. Locked.

  Since he wasn’t going to announce himself by knocking, he let himself through the side gate. The back door was also locked, but it opened when coerced with the lock pick he kept in his wallet. He hadn’t spent four hundred years as a human and not learned anything about survival, for too long his life had depended on his ability to break out of, or into, buildings. The skill had also helped when he was searching for the book in peoples’ private collections.

  He closed the door with barely a click. Water steamed off his clothes and heat licked his skin as if he were near a fire, drying the rain residue. A howl of rage directed Nik to the front of the house. He moved silently over the wood floor to where Gardner kneeled in front of the fireplace, poking at the pages he’d ripped from the book. But they remained whole and unburned.

  Fire salamanders scuttled around the edges of the pages, unable to keep a footing on what had once been his skin. One saw him and puffed up its neck frill in a show of aggression. Its yellow tongue darted out as it hissed; then it flicked the page onto the brick hearth in disgust. They knew him for what he was. A Water Elemental.

  “Water defeats fire,” Nik said, his hands curled by his side. The urge to kill Gardner was tempered by thoughts of Isla. She wouldn’t want anyone to die.

  Gardner spun. “You.”

  “You’re destroying evidence.” Or at least trying to.

  On the logs lay a bent metal spiral and thick, peeling cinders. They were all that remained of Isla’s other sketchbook. Anger burned hotter than any flame made by man. He was too late to save the rest of her work.

  “She’s going to ruin my career.” Gardner tossed the whole book, what used to be Nik’s tail, into the fire.

  The crimson leather flared brilliant blue in the heat. Nik’s skin tightened as if he was sunburned. He had to get the book out of the fire—water would eventually evaporate in fire’s glare. The salamanders didn’t offer to help. They laughed the dry crackle humans mistook for the sound of burning wood. Why would they help him? Fire and water were enemies at best.

  “You did that on your own.” Nik moved closer to his tail.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Mr. Gardner lifted the poker and waved it at Nik, a mad glint in his eyes.

  Nik stepped back with his hands raised as though he meant no harm. Fire may n
ot kill him, but a metal spike through the chest would.

  “No one has ever refused me. I saw the sketches. She’s sleeping with you. A nobody. Throwing her scholarship away.”

  Nik smiled, understanding the bitterness that had flowed from the man’s touch. Jealousy. “You became a lecturer because you never made it as an artist. Tell me, do you always prey on the most talented?”

  Mr. Gardner jabbed the poker at Nik.

  He danced back, taunting Gardner away from the fire. “You’ve spent your life destroying others. How does it feel?”

  “Why should they keep their dream alive when mine died? I won’t be brought down by trailer trash. That’s what she is. Did she tell you, or did she lie?” He stalked toward Nik. “Get out of my house before I call the police.”

  “I’ve already done it.” At the edge of Nik’s hearing sirens began singing. “I want the book. It belongs to Isla.”

  Nik circled closer to the fireplace.

  “Like hell.” Gardner moved to protect the fire that had so far refused to gobble up the leather book.

  A salamander leaped onto Gardner’s leg and raced up his pants, scorching fabric and skin as it went. A hiss of excitement slipped past the salamander’s lipless mouth. The teacher swatted at his leg, yelling obscenities, but he never caught the fire Elemental. Fire and water may not mix, but Elementals always sided with each other over humans. What humans called Mother Nature was just Elementals arguing about who was the most powerful. No one had won yet.

  Nik used the distraction to dive for the fire. He snatched up his tail and the loose pages of skin out of the flames. They were hot like midday desert sand in his hand, but undamaged.

  The book was his. For the first time in four centuries, he held the tail of his corporeal water body. He could return to the sea. Be water, or swim as a mer again. He was free.

  Joy flooded his system, wiping away the pain of missing skin until it was nothing more than a pale shadow.

  Nothing happened.

  Gardner yelled and raised the poker in a blow that would land on Nik’s head and crush his skull. Nik rolled, and the metal sparked on the tiled hearth where he’d been only a heartbeat before.

  Water.

  He needed water. The thought consumed him, an urge he had to obey.

  The way to the kitchen and the back door was blocked by a singed and enraged Gardner. But there was more water in the house. He could feel the ebb and swell in the pipes. Nik ran upstairs. Heavy footsteps pounded behind him, the poker smashing against the floor behind his heels. The sirens urged him faster. He had to be out of the house before the police arrived.

  Nik darted into the bathroom and turned on the shower but didn’t get in. He looked at the red-faced Gardner then back at the water. His thoughts jumbled around the need to be whole. He was cornered. The only escape was down the drain.

  Isla would lose her book.

  “Get out, you thieving bastard.” The metal poker hit the glass shower screen. It shattered but remained in place, held together by the safety film.

  “With pleasure.” Nik let the loose pages fall to the bathroom floor. It was all he could leave her. He could live without that skin. Isla couldn’t. He stepped back into the stream of water, the book clutched to his chest.

  Drops hit his back. Then he was water, falling to the tiles. Insubstantial. Able to take any form he chose. The tides became his pulse. He heard the surf break in Australia, an ice shelf plunge into the depths in Antarctica. Sensations he’d missed flooded his being. He was water. And this puny human had tried to stand in his way.

  The rage he’d kept locked unfurled. He couldn’t remember the cause, but it didn’t matter. He. Was. Water.

  “What the…” The man stepped into the shower.

  Water wrapped around Gardner like a shroud. Liquid hands forced their way into his throat. Gardner coughed and choked as he drowned. Air made no effort to save the man’s life as his lungs filled with fatal fluid. Nik reveled in the power of the oceans and the thrill of being Elemental.

  Isla’s smile formed in Nik’s mind. He’d come here for her. Killing Gardner wouldn’t help. Nik loosened his grip so Gardner could breathe. The sirens were replaced with voices as the police entered the house.

  Gardner’s arms and legs thrashed as he tried to escape the prison that was wrapped around him like a second skin. Nik let him feel the pressure of the sea. Death was too quick for this man, but he couldn’t remember why. There was a reason. A woman, but her memory was buried beneath the longing to be free.

  Why was he here?

  A police officer appeared in the doorway. “Found him and some of the drawings.”

  “No.” Gardner yelled, clawing at his skin like he could peel the water off.

  Nik slid away to rejoin the tide. The carcass of humanity he’d worn and the memories he’d held were gone.

  Chapter Eight

  Isla was swimming through mud. She dressed for work like she was going to her own funeral. The grind of work and study was taking its toll. Her hand was no longer fluid as it marked the paper, and her ideas had stopped flowing.

  Her scholarship was safe. Mr. Gardner had caved beneath the testimony of previous students, but she had stalled. The images of diatoms were still pinned to her walls, but the drawings were un-started because she couldn’t open the envelope and face seeing her sketches of Nik again.

  The police had returned the few drawings of Nik that had been found on the floor in Mr. Gardner’s bathroom, but the red leather book had been destroyed. The remains were never found. Was it right to mourn a book? Probably not, but she had. It had been easier than admitting she’d let herself fall for Nik.

  Six months hadn’t eased the pain of Nik leaving. He’d taken her heart with him when he had vanished without a goodbye. She slumped on to the bed and slipped on her shoes. She had truly meant nothing to him. A fling, and nothing more. Exactly what she’d thought she’d wanted. But she remembered him. Remembered every skin-shivering caress. Remembered the way she’d pushed him away.

  But she couldn’t stop and dwell on the emptiness. She didn’t have time. Half-complete drawings lay in piles around her room. Assignments waited to be started. Isla raked her fingers through her hair. Her dream was killing her. She wanted a night off to do nothing. No work, no study.

  Everyone deserves a night off.

  Nik had been right about that. She picked up the phone and for the first time in her life called in sick. She didn’t get fired. Her boss just told her take care and get better.

  That easy.

  Guilt chewed on her toes as she took off her shoes. It felt like she was getting away with a crime. Someone would know how selfish she was. Her mother would remind her. Isla shut out her mother’s griping whine. She ignored the assignments sitting on her desk, calling for her attention. No work. No study. This time was a gift for herself.

  It was Friday evening, twilight still at least an hour away. She was going to go outside and enjoy it for a change. She changed into jeans and sneakers and grabbed her satchel with her sketchbook inside, almost as an afterthought. It wasn’t beautiful, or unique, but it was hers.

  Isla walked to the river, her bag bumping against her hip. The air was heavy with unspent rain. The wind tossed leaves and litter into the air. She sat on a bench and watched the boats chug past on the gray water. Lights sparkled on the surface like gold foil. She pulled out her sketchbook and waited, pencil in hand, blank page in front of her, for a picture to form, an idea to spark. Anything that would prove she hadn’t lost her talent.

  All she could think about was the envelope in her satchel and the drawings of Nik it contained. She sighed and put aside the book. Maybe she couldn’t have a new idea because she couldn’t complete the old one.

  Maybe now was the time to open the envelope and to let the idea go. To let Nik go.

  She slid her nail under the flap. Three thick, translucent pages fell out on to her lap. The pictures blurred as she sniffed and blinked back te
ars. She traced over the lines, imagining the feel of his muscle, not the paper. A teardrop spotted the page and streaked through the pencil, ruining the sketch but not erasing the memory. Only time would soften the jagged edges. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Nik loved to travel. She looked up at the river. She’d send him off on a final voyage.

  Isla folded each sheet into a little boat, portions of Nik revealed on every side. An arm, a leg, his face. She walked to the edge of the river. It was better this way—she would move on the way he had. Wherever he was, she wished him well and hoped that when he slept at night he occasionally dreamed of her. With a final thought of their time together, she dropped the little boats into the river. The current snatched at the pages, twirling them out of reach, and out of sight. Her heart lurched as all traces of Nik were washed away like he’d never existed.

  ****

  He was water. Other water Elementals had welcomed his return as if he’d been away only days, not centuries. He passed his time in a swirl of chatter and games. And he was bored.

  Bored of the female Elementals who would kiss him and then expect him to chase them across the globe to prove his affection. Bored with thrashing shores with storms that swept cars out to sea. They only made the tension in his fluid body swell. Even riding the tidal wave that drowned an island had failed to raise a thrill.

  Nik shimmered, water becoming the body of a merman. He flicked his glistening crimson tail in self-disgust at how human he’d become and swam deep to where the only light came from luminescent creatures that never saw daylight. He was more comfortable with skin and scale than as a drop of water. He lay on the floor of the ocean and watched the edge of a continent being birthed. The magic of the elements working together didn’t move him as it once had.

  His ocean had changed. Even this deep, he could taste the bitterness of pollution. See the change in the creatures. The ocean was emptier. But it was more than that. He had changed. He shot up through the water, his body unaffected by the change of pressure. He skimmed the crests of waves until he reached the sandy shore of what had been his favorite island. It was now a tourist resort.