Moontide

by Amanda V. Shane

  “Run…now!” yelled a deep voice at her ear.

  She gasped then looked up into a pair of dark eyes and a grim mouth before the stranger’s words registered. He didn’t need to ask her twice to get out of his way. She scooted backwards in the sand, then gaining her footing, she ran to hide in the bushes. Watching from her hiding spot, she saw Ronan stab another of the gruesome creatures and it fell to the beach with the other one.

  The man with the machete stalked toward the beasts then kicked one over. It stared up at him and coughed up a dark bilious substance. He spoke to the creature in a language that Cindy didn’t recognize as anything she’d ever heard right before he lifted his weapon then swung it in a single downward stroke. Just like that, the demon’s head was cut from its body. “Like a hot knife through butter” the analogy rang through Cindy’s head. She shrank further into the bushes.

  She stopped moving though, when a sharp chill ran the length of her spine as something hissed in her ear.

  “Kassa,” she heard a voice say then she was grabbed from behind.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “You have to take their heads, or else they’ll stumble around terrorizing humans and bleeding their slime all over the place.”

  Ronan stood with his knife in his hand. His hair fell across his face in sweaty strands and his chest heaved. He watched the other man, whom he’d met just the night before, from a short distance. One of the creatures started to pull itself up. It reached an almost kneeling position before Adam walked over to it and slashed through the air, severing its head in one quick motion.

  Adam cleaned his blade off by wiping it in the sand then looked over his shoulder at Ronan.

  “Don’t tell me, Captain. You left your sword in your other pants.”

  Ronan just shook the hair out of his eyes, staggering a little without Cindy’s touch to bolster him. The effects of the blood fury had kept him strong during the fight, but now they were starting to wane.

  “It was fortunate you showed up when you did,” Ronan said. “What the hell are those things?”

  The other man was busy wiping his weapon off with a cloth he’d pulled out of his back pocket, polishing the metal to a high shine.

  “They,” he pointed at the demon corpses with his machete, “are a bunch of assholes.”

  Ronan’s patience was out.

  “Where do they come from? They are not of this world.”

  Adam sighed.

  “These poor beasts are a creation of the old gods, the Titans, during their confinement beneath Tartarus. They’ve only surfaced in this realm recently.”

  Ronan didn’t say anything, just held his gaze on the other man, waiting for him to go on.

  Adam kicked at the sand with his boot.

  “For amusement,” he said, “the ancients decided to try and create beings from drops of their own blood, mixed with the murky waters of the rivers that run through the deepest bowels of hell. These creatures you see here are the fruit of their experiments. They were never named but, in the business,” he smirked, “we call them the Miserians. Born of sorrow, misery and Titan blood. The Titans created these soulless beings then left them behind in Tartarus when their confinement ended.

  But, now, they’ve found a way to slip through the cracks of the underworld and gain entry to the human realm somehow. I suspect they have been led here but that’s another story. They seek emotions, mainly fear, to get any kind of satisfaction out of their miserable existence and the human race is currently their drug of choice. They steal the spirits they are lacking from their victims.”

  Adam shook the cloth in his hand out and returned it to his pocket. He looked in the direction of the city strip and let out a weary breath. Again, Ronan had the feeling that this immortal should be known to him. In an instant, a scene of two warriors fighting side by side flashed before his eyes. He shook his head to clear the images away, disregarding them as a remnant of the blood fury.

  “Another creation of the gods unleashed on earth to wreak havoc,” he said.

  His voice sounded weak as the effects of his mortal curse slowly engulfed him.

  Leaves rustled in the breeze and both men turned to the look at the trees.

  “Are you there cara?” Ronan called, scanning the patch of plant life he had seen Cindy scramble into during the fighting.

  He started into the bushes just as he heard a feminine cry. He shook off his weakness and rushed toward Cindy with Adam right behind him.

  They ran through broad leafed plants and Ronan yelled out in rage when he saw a demon on her. It was the first one that he’d stabbed after she’d blinded it with her flashing light. It was covering half of her body in its darkness. The thing’s claw-like fingers held her down, ripping into the fragile skin of her shoulders and arms. Ronan could see that her throat had a jagged gash that she was bleeding from. The Miserian reared up, looking back at him with its glowing eyes. If the creature had had a human face, it would have smiled in revenge. It turned back to Cindy and when its eyes centered on her chest, a white light started to glow beneath her skin. The demon swooped down on her, ready to devour her soul.

  Ronan surged forward to rip the monster off of her. He tackled it, and with his last remaining strength, sliced through its neck with his knife, cutting through gristle and tendon until he’d relieved it of its head. He heaved the demon’s body away from him and turned to Cindy’s limp form. Stumbling closer, he sank down into the sand next to her too still body.

  Her eyes were barely open but she looked at him and mouthed his name as her hand came up to his chest. Her touch, as weakened as she was, still had the power to strengthen him. His eyes brightened again, just like all the other times she’d lent him her vitality this day. He scooped her up on his lap then brushed her wet hair away from her face. The light in her expression grew faint before her eyes went dim and closed. Ronan felt the life drain out of her body at the same time his own started to seep away again.

  Pain ripped through him as Cindy’s life force faded out and he was blasted by the effects of his curse. He doubled over from it, folding over her.

  He pushed up halfway to look at her face. Silver light from the moon caught in her hair and her skin as though it were a part of her. His mind caught on the strands of a distant memory, like another vision in his mind’s eye, but it faded away as quickly as it had come.

  He had to do something. He couldn’t let her life end this way. Hadn’t Adam said that the Miserians took the spirit of their victims? She’d only been with him that night because she’d been helping him, lending him her strength. He couldn’t repay her kindness by letting her go to demons for eternity.

  A shifting movement caught his attention. Adam stared at the two of them from a close distance. He shook his head, at a loss for words.

  Ronan searched through all his knowledge of the otherworld, seeking a solution. Then it came to him. He found the pouch that held the god’s elixir. Frantic to save her, he reached in and grabbed the copper vile. Shaking the bag away, he brought the charm into both of his hands.

  When he unscrewed the top of the vial, a radiant gold light spilled from the tiny container.

  “No Ronan!” Adam shouted, looking at what he held. “You have no idea what could happen.”

  “I can save her,” Ronan said, glaring up at him, daring him to try and stop him. Adam backed up a half a step and splayed his hands out in front of him.

  “You know that every gift from the gods comes at a price,” he said, a fleeting look of misery coming over his face with those words. He backed up another step and crossed his arms on his chest, making it clear that he’d say no more.

  Ronan’s decision had already been made though. He brought the vial to Cindy’s lips and tipped its contents into her mouth.

  After he’d emptied the last drop from the vial, he pushed Cindy’s chin up, hoping that the liquid would run down her throat. He didn’t know how the substance worked but he thought it must have to be swallowed.
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br />   Both men waited in the dark, watching to see what would happen. Ronan looked up at Adam thinking that maybe the immortal would have some sort of wisdom to share, but the other man just stared into the night not speaking.

  Just as he started to give up hope, Cindy jerked in his arms. A soft orange glow became visible through her skin and trailed down her throat. The glow grew brighter and before long, a brilliant ray of light shot forth from her chest. Her head fell back against his arm and her back arched. Ronan stared, fearing that he had just done something terrible, changed her horribly in some way. Then, as quickly as it came, the gold beam retreated into her body as if sucked back in and it was dark once more.

  Finally, she opened her eyes, the last remnants of light flickering in them then subsiding, leaving behind her usual stormy gray-blue that Ronan found so mesmerizing. She reached up to stroke his face. Then, as if coming out of a trance, her eyes widened with awareness and she looked at her surroundings.

  “Wh-What happened?” she asked him, “Th-That thing came out of the bushes and grabbed me!”

  She tried to pull up but Ronan held her.

  “It’s over now, cara,” he assured her, “it’s dead.”

  ***

  Cindy reached a hand up to her throat, remembering how that creature had torn at her. There was nothing there now though, no jagged ripped flesh, just her own smooth skin. She looked at Ronan, question in her eyes, then a tiny moonlit sparkle caught her attention and she saw the gods’ charm in his hand. She could see he only held the bottom half of it though and when she swallowed, there was a strange new taste on her tongue, sweet like honey but different.

  Something moved by the trees and she saw the stranger that had helped them in their battle with the demons. He regarded her evenly, his face set in grim lines.

  “Did I drink that?” She asked, looking back at Ronan.

  “You were dying cara. I knew no other way to heal you…”

  He fell silent and held her stare. She nodded, hoping the uneasiness she felt over this news was only residual fear from having been attacked by a supernatural monster.

  “What happens now?” She asked, afraid to find out what more the night could possibly hold for them.

  “I think we’re about to find out,” the stranger’s deep voice cut through the night.

  Cindy and Ronan followed his eyes across the beach and she strained to see a small shape in the water beyond. It stood out against the sky only because it rode along on the swell of a rolling wave that was heading into shore. Her first thought was, what kind of nit-wit would be out surfing at this time of night. But, as the wave crested and crashed against the sand, she saw that the figure was that of a woman, and she wasn’t surfing, she was…shimmering…across the water.

  The woman’s long dark hair and diaphanous gown billowed around her, making her an ethereal vision coming in off the surf. Her skin seemed to absorb the colors of the water that held her. She was beautiful and Cindy knew without asking that she stared at another spirit being.

  “Oh brother,” she groaned, “these things just keep turning up!”

  The stranger barked out a short laugh at this but Ronan pulled her in and held her all the tighter.

  At this rate, she wouldn’t be surprised to see Bigfoot come cruising down the beach on a scooter sporting a Tommy Bahama and a fishing hat. She was starting to get fed up with all these mythical creatures. If her happy-go-lucky Sasquatch, indeed, did decide to put in an appearance, she’d probably flip him the bird just on principle. She cleared away the image of the, now frowning, Bigfoot and tuned back in as the water goddess glided towards them.

  At about twenty feet away, the nymph paused and settled. A look of unbridled disgust crossed her exquisite face as her feet touched the ground and Cindy hated that it looked so beautiful on her. The stunning creature took in the carnage on the beach and sneered at the sight of the dead demon creatures. Her eyes passed over Ronan and Cindy then widened as they fell on the other man standing there. Her nostrils flared and her whole complexion seemed to darken then she bowed her head and spoke some strange sounding words. They sounded like a greeting, but were said with a grudging reverence that made Cindy wonder, all the more, about the mysterious angel of death leaning against the palm tree.

  The man snorted and looked away. The pale nymph flushed at the rebuff but said nothing more to him. Her focus shifted back to Ronan and Cindy, and her eyes narrowed.

  Ronan stood with Cindy in his arms then set her on her feet, moving his body to shield her. The spirit woman threw her head back and laughed. It was a cruel mocking sound and it raised goose bumps on Cindy’s skin.

  “What brings you, Nia?” Ronan asked, his voice heavy with contempt.

  She sobered but went on studying them a moment longer. One icy blue finger came up to her mouth and her eyes slanted like a cat’s.

  Finally, she spoke.

  “You will follow me back through the Tides. Poseidon has no more patience for you and summons you to give an accounting of your failure,” she smirked, then added as an afterthought, “and he wants the elixir returned to him!”

  With that, she turned away from them, obviously expecting them to follow.

  That was it? He had to do what psycho-nymph said or else? After everything they’d been through in the space of a day, Cindy was going to have to stand there and watch him disappear right that second? That empty ache gnawed at her insides at the thought.

  Ronan looked down at her. She’d come out from behind him to stand by his side.

  “Heyyy!”

  A voice yelled from up the beach.

  Nia stopped moving. She turned back and glared at the voice’s owner, then glanced over her shoulder at the two of them.

  “Bring the woman with you Captain. You won’t have the strength to pass through the portal on your own.” She spared no thought for Cindy herself.

  Cindy’s eyes widened and she felt Ronan’s body tense in anger. She’d known there was a reason she didn’t like this mermaid tramp. She glared at Nia as she started to drift toward the water again, employing that same eerie glide from before. If you asked her, the whole wafting effect had grown a little tired.

  “The whole ‘wafting’ thing is way overrated, nymph” the new voice echoed Cindy’s thoughts exactly yet all she could think was ‘what now’?”

  Finally, everyone turned to watch as a new addition to their happy little group made it to where they stood. Cindy shook her head then pointed in disbelief before blurting out.

  “You’re the gardener!”

  The groundskeeper from the lighthouse bowed to her.

  “At your service madam.”

  “Minus the crappy mustache that is,” Cindy said. “I have got such a bone to pick with you!”

  The man’s hand came up to rub in a downward motion at his upper lip.

  “Crappy? Really?”

  He turned to Ronan who just shrugged, then cleared his throat and looked back at Cindy.

  “Sorry about that whole tool shed scenario. That so did not turn out the way I had planned. But the good Captain here was on his A game,” he gestured in Ronan’s direction, “so, no harm no foul, right, little lady?”

  Cindy growled. But the fierce stranger with the machete spoke before she could go off on a rant.

  “What brings you to Miami Krav?”

  “Adam.” Krav, nodded in acknowledgement.

  “We really don’t have time to listen to this serpent’s idiocy,” Nia said, piercing Krav with a look.

  To this, Krav stuck out his forked tongue, raking it across his teeth at her in what Cindy judged to be some sort of obscene insult by the way the nymph gasped. These people were seriously deranged.

  “Well, first,” Krav addressed the rest of them, ignoring Nia’s outrage, “I heard there was a fight and came to help,” Adam snorted, “but it looks like you all did just fine without me, congratulations. Second, I came to let you know that there’s been a burst in the Tides and more of t
hese guys,” he waved his hand around at the headless demons, “could be arriving shortly and third, the fair Nia,” he rolled his eyes at the nymph who returned his sentiments in kind, “is right. Ronan, you gotta hightail it back to the island pronto because the big guy down there is steamed and fit to blow. And, yes,” he nodded in Cindy’s direction, “take her with you.”

  He took a deep breath then and blew it out as if exhausted.

  “Hang on,” Cindy chimed in, “do I get a say in any of this?”

  “If you don’t go,” Adam said sounding beleaguered, “he’ll die in the Tides before he can make it back.”

  “Or he can die here without you,” Nia said, sounding pleased, “which is fine with me. But either way, you’re coming because you have the elixir now and Poseidon wants it back.”

  Wow, this story just keeps getting better and better, Cindy thought.

  “He can’t mean to take her!” Ronan objected.

  Cindy looked alternately between all their faces, trying to understand.

  Adam shook his head slowly.

  “And here comes the price,” he said.

  Krav broke in.

  “Hang on everyone. I have it on good authority, i.e. the sea god himself, that both of you are required on the island.”

  “I won’t put her in danger…” Ronan started to say.

  “You already have, servant,” Nia laughed into the salty wind gathering around them. “Your pity has made you vulnerable. My queen will be so disappointed,” she shook her head, “all her efforts to harden you, to restore you…wasted.”

  A sudden flash flew at the nymph as those last words left her mouth, and just like that, the waters where she stood appeared to swallow her whole and she was gone.

  All eyes turned to Krav who stood with one red scaled hand stretched out in the direction where Nia had been hovering in the water. He shook some water droplets from his hair and then his hand returned to match the rest of his human form once again.