by Aratare, X.
Do you need me to help you breathe? Casillus asked. He was almost at the cave. It was amazing how fast he could move.
No, no, my breathing is calming down now. It was the shock of what I saw that was causing most of my distress, Gabriel explained.
The visions, yes, and Cthulhu. All of that would be a shock. Cthulhu is poison to the soul, Casillus murmured. He glided over a reef, and Gabriel nearly laughed as a startled crab snapped its claws ineffectually at the Mer.
The urge to laugh faded quickly away as Gabriel thought about the statue.
Cthulhu is the Mers’ Guardian, right? Gabriel asked.
Cthulhu is … its own. We do not worship it. It does not protect us unless … unless summoned by a Caller.
It came to the settlement though, didn’t it? It destroyed the land tribe. What I saw about the past was real, Gabriel guessed.
Yes, my parents have confirmed it. That is the reason the Elders would not speak of that place. It is … our way. After Cthulhu has acted upon our behalf, we must be silent for fear it will turn its eyes towards us and our city next, Casillus explained, and Gabriel saw an image of Cthulhu’s many tentacles winding around strange, but wondrous towers that stretched upwards from the bottom of the sea.
Would it have come if I had touched the statue? Gabriel asked.
Yes, Gabriel. You are a Caller and you were in great distress.
I thought I could get revenge for the Mers who were killed there. It was so awful, Casillus. Gabriel shut his eyes for a moment, but the images of the dead still crowded in on him. The Mers were slaughtered! They had no chance to survive! They had no weapons! They were there to see children and lovers and I—I can’t think about it without wanting to do something and—
I am sorry that I could not shield you from what you saw, Casillus interrupted, stopping the awful flow of images from crowding into Gabriel’s mind again.
Gabriel swallowed hard. He balled his fists over his thighs. It was so awful.
I am with you. I promise I will keep you safe, even though I have failed so far ...
You haven’t failed. You’ve been with me every step of the way. After another moment, Gabriel had recovered enough to ask, How do you know I’m this Caller thing and not like that Henry guy who simply went crazy in the temple?
I could feel it. The Call was building in the temple around you. The moment you touched the statue, the Call would have been sent out into the depths and Cthulhu would have come, Casillus explained.
Gabriel swallowed. Though he had not been aware of it at the time, the pull had been there, building. Suddenly, he was certain of something else. I think Cthulhu destroyed that military base where Kane was.
Yes, it is likely so.
That’s why Johnson is so weird and freaked out. He knows about Cthulhu and he knows about its connection to the Mer.
He is misinformed. Only a Caller of your sort can bring Cthulhu, and you are the first Caller of Cthulhu to be born in a thousand years, Casillus explained. He was nearing the caves. Gabriel realized the Mer truly would be there once he and Corey arrived. I was sent out by the Elders in the hope that … well, they had hopes that I was a Caller, and that my journey would unleash my powers. I believe our Elders were actually seeing you and our connection in their visions.
They were hoping you would be able to call Cthulhu? Why? Gabriel shook his head. The very thought was appalling.
A Caller holds a position of great respect and authority, and a Caller of Cthulhu can save our people if necessary … though at great cost to himself, Casillus said softly. Just like how you wished to save the Mer at the settlement. If you had been there in the past, Gabriel, you could have rescued them.
Gabriel thought of the dead Mer child and shuddered. After a pause, he added, But Cthulhu did come back then. But it was too late. It just … it just killed everyone left.
It only came because it was excited by the deaths of the Mer so near its temple. It watches its places of worship, Casillus explained.
Does it watch its Callers, too?
Why do you ask—
It—it saved me. Before.
What? Casillus sounded shocked.
The day my parents died. Cthulhu was there. I—I think I felt it waiting out in the deep and I—I had to go to it. I made my parents sail to where it was. Gabriel swallowed. And when the storm came and capsized our boat, Cthulhu took me back to shore. Back to the Morse Place, actually.
Yes, that makes sense. It brought you to the only one of its temples you could survive at. The other is too deep, Casillus said.
At that moment, Gabriel saw the strip of parking nestled by the beach near the caves. He could already feel Casillus coming towards the shallows. “Corey, pull off here and park.”
His best friend slowed the van down and glided into a parking spot. Just as soon as the engine turned off, Gabriel was popping open the door and practically falling out onto the sandy parking lot. The wind had whipped up some of the sand from the beach and piled it onto the hot pavement. Corey was hustling around the front of the van, his flip flops making a sucking noise with each step as if the heat was melting them to the ground. Corey put an arm under Gabriel’s.
“Gabe, are you sure about this?” Corey asked as he helped Gabriel walk out onto the sand.
Casillus’ dark head appeared above the surface of the waves, and Gabriel found himself grinning as he answered, “Yeah, most definitely.”
Corey didn’t notice Casillus coming out of the water. He was so concerned about Gabriel’s condition that he didn’t even hear Casillus splashing towards them until they were almost at the waterline. The Mer ran through the shallows towards them.
Casillus!
My love!
“Who …” Corey’s head finally lifted at that sound, and his eyes grew very round. “That’s—that’s Casillus?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel got out.
Casillus took Gabriel from Corey’s arms and clutched his body to him. Gabriel held onto the Mer just as tightly.
“Gabe—Gabe, he … he … he ...” Corey sputtered out.
Gabriel knew that Corey must have spotted the gills on Casillus’ sides.
Gabriel pulled back so that he could introduce two of the most important people in his life to each other. “Casillus, this is my best friend in the world, Corey Rudman. Corey, this is Casillus Nerion, Prince of the Mers.”
The Merman: Undersea Book 4
1
REVEALING
“Casillus, this is my best friend in the world, Corey Rudman. Corey, this is Casillus Nerion, Prince of the Mers. Casillus is my someone amazing,” Gabriel Braven said as he introduced the two most important men in his life to one another.
Gabriel then collapsed against Casillus’ strong body. He had no strength of his own as his transition from man to merman was well underway and he had just survived a terrible psychic shock. Casillus bore his weight easily, cradling Gabriel against him with aching tenderness. Gabriel clung to the Mer’s half-naked form, which was still dripping wet from the sea.
You are safe, Gabriel. We are together now. It is all right, Casillus murmured through their telepathic bond as he kissed Gabriel’s forehead and temples. Gabriel felt Casillus’ gills flutter against his arms as he held on to the Mer. Casillus continued, Rest and recover, my love. You have escaped him.
The “him” Casillus spoke of was Johnson Tims, a former military man and current professor at the mysterious and secretive Miskatonic University. Johnson had insisted on Gabriel entering a strange ancient temple made of glowing blue stones that he and a group of Miskatonic’s archeology students were investigating at a long-abandoned Native American settlement. This temple was the heart of the settlement where alleged “Gods of the Sea” had come to mate with the humans and worship their terrible deity in the temple’s aquatic-like interior.
Johnson had told Gabriel that he needed to see the temple in order to “understand.” But what the ex-soldier wanted him to understand from the visit w
as still unclear. What had become certain was that Johnson knew about the existence of the Mers, believed that the Mers were the “Gods of the Sea” referenced in an inscription on the temple’s wall, suspected that the Mers were out to harm humanity, and, finally, was convinced that Gabriel was, in fact, not human, but a Mer, too. Johnson’s insistence on Gabriel’s presence in the temple had bordered on obsession, frightening and disturbing Gabriel and Corey greatly. Johnson’s obsession with Gabriel being at the temple was just part of a greater seeming obsession with Gabriel overall. Gabriel even suspected that Johnson may have actually become romantically involved with his grandmother, Grace, in order to investigate him and the Braven genetic history to see if he had Mer blood.
The thing was, Johnson was right to be suspicious about him. Ancestors on both sides of Gabriel’s family had inherited Mer blood from when the Mers were still mating with humans on the coast. Combined in Gabriel, there had been enough Mer DNA to trigger a transformation from human to merman. Gabriel had avoided undergoing this transition for years longer than normal because he had avoided the sea after his parents’ tragic deaths in a boating accident on the ocean. His parents’ boat had been capsized by a rogue wave and both of them had drowned, though Gabriel himself had seemingly inexplicably survived. He had woken up on the beach after dreaming of a creature miles high with tentacles tenderly transporting him to shore.
It was only after Gabriel returned to Ocean Side a few days before, and had gotten caught at high tide in a nearby sea cave that the transition had been triggered. Gabriel had nearly drowned, but gills had opened up along his sides and allowed him to breathe underwater. It was then that the Mer Prince Casillus Nerion had seemingly come out of nowhere to rescue him.
Casillus was the one to reveal the truth to Gabriel about himself. Gabriel was a merman. Gabriel hadn’t believed that Casillus was even real at first, let alone that he was a merman, but not even his stubborn denial could overcome seeing the physical changes in his body whenever it got wet. Gills. Webbed fingers. Changed eyes. He wasn’t human. He was a Mer.
You are safe, Casillus repeated.
But the settlement is still there, Casillus. So is the temple and that statue inside of it! That statue can hurt people! No one is safe with that there! Gabriel cried.
Gabriel was referring to a squat obsidian statue hidden in a secret inner sanctum in the very back of the temple. The statue was sculpted to resemble the monstrous creature Cthulhu, an ancient being that wreaked havoc and caused madness when called. It was also the same being that Gabriel believed he had only dreamed of taking him tenderly to the shore so long ago. The statue showed in great detail Cthulhu’s squid-like head, masses of tentacles and strange leathery wings. Hundreds of eyes had stared out of its utterly alien visage. The statue was much, much smaller than the original, which was miles high and able to crush a military base and drag it out into the sea with effort, but the statue had the same terrible presence and perhaps other powers as well.
No one but a Caller can summon Cthulhu by touching the statue, Gabriel, Casillus reminded him.
And I’m the only Caller you know of, right? Gabriel confirmed.
A Caller was a Mer with the inborn ability to connect to Cthulhu and draw it up from the ocean’s depths to attack.
You are the only Caller born in a thousand years, Gabriel, Casillus agreed.
What happened to that Caller? Or all the other Callers? Aren’t they around any longer? Mers live forever, right? Gabriel asked.
Casillus was silent for a moment and then said, All our Callers perished or went away.
There was something in Casillus’ voice that told him not to ask more. Perhaps being a Caller was a perilous thing in and of itself. Perhaps Casillus just did not wish to worry him by talking about the fates of other Callers as if Gabriel could not escape those as his own.
But Henry -- that student Greta mentioned -- was harmed just by touching the statue though, Gabriel pointed out. Henry was one of the Miskatonic students working at the settlement. He had gone into the inner sanctum alone with the statue and had seemingly gone mad.
All things connected with Cthulhu have a noxious effect on human souls, Casillus agreed.
So even without being called, Cthulhu is still able to cause the humans harm, Gabriel said.
The surf splashed against his ankles at that moment. His skin seemed to greedily drink up the water. He was shocked by the longing look he found himself giving the brilliant blue ocean spread out over Casillus’ broad, tanned shoulder. Gabriel’s shock grew as he realized he had no desire to go back to the strip of sugar-sand beach behind him. He wanted the water. He wanted the sea. Yet he was still terrified of it at the same time.
The sea is your home, Gabriel, Casillus murmured, reading Gabriel’s thoughts. It is our home.
Our home, Gabriel repeated and tried to believe it. His eyes went to his best friend. Corey had always been home for him. Now the sea, something that had filled him with loathing and dread since his parents’ deaths, had to take that place. It was then that he realized, Corey doesn’t know that I’m a Mer like you. He didn’t even know that Mers existed until he saw you.
But he believes in Mers now. He will believe you are one, too, Casillus said with certainty.
I guess he will eventually. Though I don’t know how I’m going to tell him. And I really don’t know how I’m going to tell him that I have to go into the sea and leave him and my grandmother behind, Gabriel said and swallowed hard. The Mers lived forever, but Gabriel would not survive another seventy-two hours out of the water because his newly transitioned form could not handle living on dry land.
It will be a difficult conversation to have, Casillus said. However, going into the water might not be the complete loss of your life on land that you think.
How do you mean? Gabriel asked. It wasn’t as if he and Casillus could stay near the beach like this after he had transitioned. It was dangerous for them to be here as it was, especially with a man like Johnson nearby. But until Gabriel’s body fully transitioned, he could not go to the Mer city of Emralis so they had to stay here.
I believe in time, that as a Caller, you will be able to touch Corey and Grace’s minds and talk to them no matter how far away you are from them, Casillus said.
Talk to them … Corey! He’s not talking! Gabriel realized. He jerked around to face his best friend, cognizant that Corey had been strangely silent since learning Casillus was a Mer. He asked, “Corey, are you—are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not okay, but -- but are you okay?”
He looks very shocked, Casillus said, his forehead furrowing. He is … staring. I do not think he has blinked in over five minutes.
“Casillus is a merman.” Corey’s voice was high, as if he were about to start giggling hysterically any minute. As Casillus had said, Corey was staring at the Mer with huge brown eyes that seemed to grow bigger and bigger until they filled his face.
“Yeah, he is,” Gabriel agreed, trying to smile encouragingly at his best friend and make the existence of Mers as normal as possible.
“No, Gabe, he’s a merman!” Corey repeated as if Gabriel was denying it.
“I know he is. He is actually the prince of the Mers,” Gabriel agreed again, his smile taking on a more rigid appearance. His attempts to make the existence of Mers normal were clearly failing.
“But—but—but, Gabe, he’s a merman!” Corey babbled.
Gabriel reached out and grasped his portly best friend’s shoulders. “Yes, he is. Mermen are real, Corey. Just like you always hoped. And Casillus is my boyfriend, too. Another impossible thing, right? Isn’t there some saying about how you should try to do three impossible things in a day? Well, we’ve done two already and the day isn’t even half over yet.”
Gabriel finding love—let alone true love—would have seemed impossible only the week before. He had not believed that love was in the cards for him. After his parents’ tragic deaths, he was convinced that it was his destiny to be on his own
. Corey had desperately wanted Gabriel to find love, and now he had, but Corey was still too shocked by the whole “mermen exist” thing to appreciate that all of his Cupid plans had come to fruition.
Gabriel’s gaze swung between the two most important men in his life. Casillus looked down at him tenderly out of stunning blue-green eyes. Corey’s mouth slowly opened and shut, but he still wasn’t blinking.
He’s already so shocked. How will he ever understand the rest? Gabriel thought despondently.
His heart began to pound in his chest as he imagined confessing to his best friend that he was not human. Would Corey’s eyes pop out of his head then? Would he fall over in a dead faint? Gabriel then realized that his heart wasn’t just pounding due to his anxiety over telling Corey this, but also because his body was a complete mess still after the fiasco at the temple. He needed to be submerged in water, and he was only standing ankle deep in the sea.
Casillus, sensing Gabriel’s physical distress, was suddenly moving them both. We cannot wait to get you in the water any longer. It must be now, Gabriel. All that time in the heat at the temple stressed your system.
Yeah, okay, maybe we should go out a little deeper—
Gabriel didn’t get a chance to finish that thought as Casillus immediately proceeded to strip off Gabriel’s shirt and toss it onto the sand as if it were offensive in some way. The Mer only wore shifts of brightly colored fabric around their waists that identified their family and position to others but did nothing to hide their bodies, so maybe his T-shirt was unpleasant in the Mer’s eyes. Casillus’ beautiful cock was out in the open and visible for all to see while Gabriel’s was covered with a pair of shorts and boxer briefs. The Mer reached for those as well.
Gabriel stammered out, We don’t have to take those off, Casillus—
But by that point the Mer had already undone the button and fly of his shorts and yanked them, along with Gabriel’s underwear, down his legs until they puddled around his ankles. At Casillus’ urging he stepped out of them, and the Mer flung that clothing away, too. Gabriel’s cheeks were nuclear red even as his ass cheeks were pale as the day. He had never tanned in the nude. Casillus, of course, had no tan lines. He was a beautiful golden color all over.