A Fine Cauldron Of Fish

by Cornelia Amiri

  “He’s gone, so I might as well put those on. At least you didn’t take his B is for Big shorts.” As crazy as the whole thing was, Andrew couldn’t help but laugh. “He can keep those.”

  Margaid chortled along with him. “I wonder if he can live up to the claim.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t insist on finding out.”

  “I’m your slave now. I follow your commands. When you say stop, I have to stop.”

  “Really? I recall having to yell stop several times before you actually did.”

  “Well, my obey-my-master skills may be a little rusty.”

  “Oh, a little.” Despite the fact that he didn’t believe anything she told him, he was having a lot of fun with this girl. “How many masters have you had?”

  “You are the first.”

  “Ah, so you were able to seduce your other victims with no problem.”

  “No, in my whole life I never tried to seduce a man and drain his blood before. You’re my first human. All my male friends have been fey.”

  “Oh, and you saw me and thought it would be fine to drain my blood?”

  “No, it wasn’t because of you. I decided I had to be a proper lhiannan shee. Once I went hunting for a victim, I picked you because you were there and caught my eye. Blonde, tall, muscular, once I spotted you I couldn’t look at anyone else. What made me finally try to do what my kind are supposed to do was Mannan beg mac y Leir’s threats to turn me into a water horse.”

  “Can he really do that?”

  “Oh yes. He is skilled at changing people, and himself, into other things. He’s the god of transformation.”

  “I thought he was the god of the sea.”

  “He’s the god of transformation, the sea god and the trickster god.”

  “I should have known he was a trickster god. Because based on what I’ve heard of him so far, he seems like a jester or a fool.”

  After a quick intake of breath, Margaid warned, “You must not criticize the gods. It’s not wise. Not at all.”

  “Well this is the guy or god who wanted you to drain my blood, I’m sure I’m entitled to make a negative comment or two about him.” Andrew let out a sigh. “That was strange though. That poor guy you stripped blamed me as if he really couldn’t see you.”

  “He couldn’t.”

  “No, no it’s like he said, he was just so drunk.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, did you notice his tattoos?” He couldn’t help but notice the Celtic symbols. One was an eye shaped like a fish with a fish tail on the end. “They were bad ass.”

  “No, I didn’t see them, I was too busy taking his clothes off.”

  Andrew noticed the building across the street. “Come here.” He led Margaid there and to the alley behind it. “Let me try these on. Turn around.”

  She did as he asked and he shed his wet jeans and pulled on the naked man’s pants and blue polo shirt. “That‘s better, I’m all dry now. But what about you? Your dress is soaked.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I don’t mind, I like water. And no one can see me but you. So it doesn’t matter.” She was staring at his crotch. “Are those that man’s pants?”

  “Yeah, the ones you stole right off him.” He’d get her to the hospital and they would get her dry clothes there, a gown are something. She needed help. What else could he do but take her there.

  “They fit differently on you.”

  “How? What’s wrong?” He looked down to see what she meant.

  “Oh, nothing’s wrong. They seem a little tighter in the right place, that’s all.”

  She had that funny expression again. And she kept starring at his hard on, but he didn’t mind. Not at all. Andrew grinned as he felt his cock stiffen and enlarge even more, just from her gaze. He wished he had his contacts so he could see exactly what she looked like.

  Maybe he could take her to the hotel. Spend his vacation with her. Her breasts were so lush and round. Even with his bad eyesight he could see that. And her skin so soft. It had been heaven to be inside her, but no, that wasn’t right. She needed help. He cleared his throat. “Right. I’m going to help you get help. The nurses at the hospital will get you into a clean, dry gown. Then the doctors will help you see you’re not invisible. And I’ll come and check on you before my vacation’s over. Come on. I have an important errand I need to run.”

  He led her down the street until he came to a stop in front of a modern style, two story, light-colored brick building. The large sign out front read Nobles Hospital. “Here we are. They’ll help you.”

  She shrugged.”Help me with what?”

  * * * * *

  He took her in through the emergency entrance and up to the window where a lady intake clerk in blue scrubs greeted them.

  “Andrew, they’re going to help me do what?”

  “Just a moment.” Holding his hand up to Margaid, he nodded at the admittance clerk.

  “Very well sir, tell me when you’re ready.”

  “No, I don’t mean you.”

  The lady shifted her eyes back and forth. “Of course you didn’t and how may I help you?”

  “This girl right here needs some help.”

  The clerk’s eyes arched and she bore her gaze into Andrew.

  “She can’t see me. I told you, no one can see me but you.”

  He smiled at Margaid so she would know everything was all right, and then he turned back to the admittance clerk. “She says no one can see her.”

  Margaid’s face puckered into a sucking lemons expression. “It smells in here.”

  The lady gazed at him with a blank stare and ignored Margaid.

  With a shrug, he explained, “She says she’s a lhiannan shee.”

  The clerk’s eyebrows arched.

  “Andrew, I don’t like it here. I think we should leave.”

  Gesturing Margaid to be quiet, he spoke louder to the clerk. “She says the sea god

  told her to drain men’s blood into a red cauldron.”

  “Andrew, they keep human blood here. I can smell it.”

  “Ma’am, are you listening? Stop staring, my friend needs help.”

  “All right.” The lady in blue scrubs crossed her arms over her chest. “Where is she?”

  “How can she help me if she can’t see me?”

  “Margaid, I can’t talk to two people at once, please be quiet.” He leaned closer to the clerk’s window. “She’s right here in front of you.” He wrapped his arm around Margaid’s shoulder.

  “I see.” The admittance clerk’s lips grew tight and her eyes narrowed. “And what is your name?”

  “I’m Andrew Quayle, I’m an American.”

  The lady began typing on the computer. “Address please?”

  “Why are you giving her your address? You never gave me your address. Andrew, you don’t even know this woman. I don’t like the way she’s looking at you.”

  “I don’t like the way she’s looking at me, either.” He tilted his head toward the clerk. “I don’t think you need my information, do you? You need Margaid’s.”

  “Very well, stay right here please.” The slant of her eyes and the arch of her brows suggested she’d cast him aside. “A nurse will be with you soon.” She picked up the phone and pushed a button. “We have a situation, we need someone up front.”

  “Andrew, I’m not a situation and neither are you. We should just leave if that’s the way they’re going to be.”

  “Margaid, the doctors here can help you. I’m sure of it.” He inhaled slowly. “Just please be quiet.”

  “Why? They can’t hear me.”

  Soon, a middle-aged woman in a white, zip front tunic and straight-legged slacks stepped up to him. “Hello sir, come with me please.” She led him into a small room with an examination table. She motioned to Andrew to sit on the table.

  “Me or Margaid?”

  “I’m not sitting down there, Andrew. I want to go back to my cave.”

  The nurse sat in the cha
ir. “Margaid?” The nurse’s forehead crinkled.

  “Yes.” Were these women blind? He pointed at Margaid.

  “Yes, that’s me, the lhiannan shee.”

  The nurse kept her gaze on Andrew. “How can I help you?”

  “I brought Margaid, she’s the patient.” Was everyone on this island either dense or crazy?

  “Is she here with us?” The nurse scanned the small office as if looking for Margaid.

  “Of course I’m here with you. I’m not going to leave Andrew alone in this awful place. It smells like sickness in here.” Margaid crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Yes, she’s speaking to you right now.” What’s wrong with this nurse?

  “Sir, this may seem like a dumb question but do you know that no one’s here but you and me?”

  “Are you crazy? She’s right here.”

  Margaid’s eyes widened. “Andrew, I think she thinks you’re crazy.”

  “Why don’t you tell me a little about Margaid?” The nurse leaned closer to him.

  “I don’t like this woman. Don’t tell her anything about me.”

  “Look, I’m not crazy. She’s here but she says no one can see her but me. That can’t be true. It makes no sense.”

  “Of course it makes sense, Andrew. It’s part of the lhiannan shee lore because I’m your slave. I keep telling you that.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “I just met her tonight, she lives under the sea. She says she’s something called a lhiannan shee.” He paused and looked the nurse straight in the eye, hoping he could get her to understand. “I’m not crazy. It’s true.” He let out a sigh. “You really don’t see her?”

  Margaid stepped but a breath span from the woman and waved her hands in the nurse’s face. “Hello, hello.”

  “I don’t see anyone in here but you and me. However, did you say she’s a lhiannan shee?”

  Andrew chuckled at Margaid’s antics. “That’s what she says. I know it makes no sense, I never even heard of it before.”

  “You’re not from the island.”

  “Does he sound like he’s from the island?” Margaid rolled her eyes.

  “No, I’m an American.”

  The clerk looked at him with a skeptical smile on her face. “How did you learn about the lhiannan shee?”

  “Margaid told me.”

  “Lady, he knows all about the lhiannan shee. He has one as a slave.”

  The nurse closed her eyes for a moment. “She’s with us now.”

  “Yes.” Andrew and Margaid spoke simultaneously.

  “Can you finally see her?”

  “No, but I feel her energy. I’m Manx, I know of the lhiannan shee.”

  “You don’t look like you know much to me,” Margaid quipped.

  “So you believe me.” Andrew smiled with relief.

  “Yes, but I don’t know if I can help you. The lhiannan shee kill their prey.”

  “What did you say?” Margaid placed her hands on her hips. “I’ve never killed anyone. But I might make an exception and drink your blood.”

  “Margaid says she’s my slave because I resisted her seduction.”

  “You tell her.” Margaid’s face was flushed with anger.

  “What?” The nurse gulped. “She wasn’t able to seduce you?”

  “Look lady that’s none of your business.” Margaid scowled.

  “Well, I tied her hands, anyway, she couldn’t complete the seduction.” His cheeks felt hot with embarrassment. “So it’s as if I resisted her charms. That’s what she says.” He hoped this nurse didn’t ask him anything else.

  The nurse rubbed her forehead. “The lhiannan shee are unmatched in their beauty. They seduce men with their looks alone.”

  “Well, that is true.” Margaid began to calm down.

  “Well, I lost my contacts. So she’s as much a blur to me as you are.”

  “You can’t see her well?”

  “No.”

  “That explains it.” The nurse leaned back in the straight wooden chair and laughed. “The lhiannan shee are fey. If you’d been able to truly see her, you couldn’t resist her charms.”

  “Finally, she’s beginning to understand.” Margaid sighed.

  “Are you saying if I had had my contacts I’d be dead now, my blood drained into a big cauldron?”

  “Yes, no matter how sweet this Margaid seems, you can’t underestimate the lhiannan shee.”

  “Forget what I said, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about Andrew.”

  “So you think she's dangerous?”

  “Andrew, how can you say that?" Margaid asked in a hurt tone.

  “Well, you said she’s your slave.”

  “Yes, that’s what she says.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then she’s no danger to you now. But why do you want help, you won, you have a lhiannan shee enslaved to you.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Andrew.”

  “I can’t have a slave. I’m an American. I can’t bring a Manx fairy-vampire slave home with me.”

  “Then it’s not a hospital you need, it’s a druid.” The nurse stood.

  “She might have something there.”

  “Really?” The mental ward nurse thinks I should see a druid. “Do you know any?”

  “I know where you can find one. The laws that direct the lhiannan shee can only be broken by the god who created them. Only Mannan beg mac y Leir can change Margaid’s fate. But it’s not without risk. The sea god won’t be happy when he finds his lhiannan shee enslaved to a man from America.”

  “Andrew, she’s right.”

  “Well, I am a Quayle also.”

  “He won’t care,” the nurse said.

  “But you’re saying that he can give Margaid her freedom.”

  “He is the only one who can, but before you go asking a trickster god like Mannan for a favor, stop and think for a moment. He can just as easily turn you over to a lhiannan shee who’ll drink your blood. Margaid will be free, but you’ll be dead. The chance of Mannan beg mac y Leir keeping both you and Margaid alive and free… is slim.”

  Andrew rubbed his forehead. “This is a crazy island with its four horned sheep, cats with no tails, and now this. It’s all warped and fifth dimensional.”

  “You know, it’s your choice.” The nurse shrugged. “Leave matters as they are and learn to be happy, or have a druid summon Mannan at risk to your own life.”

  “That’s scary.” All this started just because I was looking for a club to go to.

  “You have to sort it out. It’s like that American expression—shit happens.”

  “Is that her medical opinion?” Margaid’s brows arched.

  “I guess so.”Andrew rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t even know how to find a druid.”

  “At the nearest metaphysical store, Celtic Cauldron, just two blocks down. Ask for the owner. If you’re sure that’s what you want to do.” The nurse’s tone held a hint of warning.

  “Okay, can we go now?” Margaid headed to the door.

  “Let’s go back to my hotel. I have to think about this and I need a drink or two.”

  “Me too.” Margaid grabbed his hand.

  He nodded at the nurse. “Thank you.”

  “Enjoy your stay on the Isle of Man.”

  “Sure.” Everyone on this island is crazy. “I’m having so much fun. So glad I came.”

  As Andrew walked out, he overheard the admissions lady ask the nurse, “Are you going to just let him walk out, as clicky as he is?”

  “No, he’s not crazy, just an American having a little joke on us.”

  “Well, as if I didn’t have better things to do,” quipped the woman in blue scrubs.

  “Hurry,” Andrew goaded Margaid.

  Chapter Three

  They walked as fast as they could away from Nobles Hospital. Andrew stopped in his tracks when he noticed the store they had just come to was the Celtic Cauldron.


  Relief filled him when he read the closed sign on the door. Good, I can’t deal with this right now. “We have to come back tomorrow.”

  “Andrew, I don’t want some lhiannan shee drinking your blood. I won’t be able to stand it. Why not keep things as they are?”

  He gazed at her oval face. Even without his contacts her could make out her rounded, dimpled cheeks. His gaze fell to the shapely curve of her ample bust. His fingers itched to squeeze them, pinch them, his mouth moistened at the thought of sucking them.

  “We’ll talk about it soon.” He wrapped his arm around her as they crossed the street. His skin tingled from the contact of her warm, soft skin. He pointed to the large building on the sea front. “Here we are.” Pressure coiled in his crotch, muscles clenching throughout his pelvis. His cock and testicles felt wrenched tight with desire for her.

  “Wow, this is big. This is your house?”

  “No,” he laughed. “It’s the Hilton.” Nodding to the doorman, Andrew led her inside.

  “I’ve heard people call it that. What’s a Hilton, is it like a chief’s house or a castle?” She swept her gaze over the spacious lobby.

  “No, it’s a place Americans go when their parents are paying for the vacation.”

  “I’ve also heard this place called a casino. What is that?”

  “It’s a place you go to lose money.”

  “Why would anyone want to lose their riches?” She followed him down a short hall.

  “Good question.” Andrew led her to the elevator and pushed the button. When the doors opened, he motioned to her. “Come on in.”

  “It’s so small.”

  “It’s an elevator.”

  “I’m telling you, Andrew, it’s too small.” She stepped inside. “With a big estate like this Hilton, they should let you have a larger room.”

  He chuckled. His favorite thing about Margaid was the way she made him laugh. The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. “Come on.” He stepped out and gestured for her to follow.

  “Where are you going? Why are you leaving? We just got here?”

  “It took us up so we didn’t have to climb the stairs. This is our floor.”

  “Wow, its magic. It moved us.” She followed him down the hall.